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Electrify Chicago

An independent tool for viewing City of Chicago building data

According to the 2022 Chicago Climate Action Plan(opens in a new tab), 69% of Chicago's emissions come from buildings, making building emissions our biggest challenge and our biggest opportunity as a city to tackle climate change. At Electrify Chicago, we showcase building performance using publicly available data supplemented by community-submitted photographs and building owners.

Start by looking at Chicago's buildings with the highest greenhouse gas intensity i.e. emissions per square foot. Large, efficient, buildings can perform much better than very inefficient small buildings on this metric.

New Article
📰 $30 Million In Missed Fines

The City Of Chicago failed to collect $30 million in potential fines from the building benchmarking ordinance, reducing transparency and accountability.

Read Our Full Blog Post On Millions in Missed Fines.

Legislative update! 🎉

As of late January 2024, legislation is being introduced to require new use more efficient forms of water and space heating, via the Clean And Affordable Buildings Ordinance (CABO), which will reduce the number of highly polluting and inefficient buildings that end up on this site.

If you're in Chicago, write to your alderman to support the CABO! (opens in a new tab)

Chicago Buildings by Greenhouse Gas Intensity

Note: Data includes large Chicago buildings with data from 2022, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Note: This data only includes buildings whose emissions are reported under the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance(opens in a new tab). According to the City “As of 2016, this list includes all commercial, institutional, and residential buildings larger than 50,000 square feet.” This dataset is also then filtered to only buildings with reported emissions > 1,000 metric tons CO2 equivalent.

The latest year of data is from 2022, but we update the site regularly when new data is available, and some buildings may have failed to report that year, and only have older data available.

Property Name / address Primary Property Type Greenhouse Gas Intensity
(kg CO2 eq./sqft)
Total Greenhouse Emissions
(metric tons CO2 eq.)
High School/ Middle School/ Sunny and Kovler Gym/ Belfield, Judd, Blaine Hall
5840 S Kenwood Ave
K-12 School
13.6 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
1,236 tons
Highest 38%
540 W Madison Ave
🚩
540 W Madison
Financial Office
13.6 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
16,649 tons
#24 Highest
Warner Brothers
2650 W Bradley Pl
Office
13.5 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
2,026 tons
Highest 23%
Dyett HS -CPS
(CPS)
555 E 51st St
K-12 School
13.5 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
2,192 tons
Highest 21%
SpringHill Suites Chicago O'Hare / Hampton Inn and Suites Chicago
8101 W Higgins Rd
Hotel
13.5 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
2,162 tons
Highest 21%
Woodson Regional Library
9525 S Halsted St
Library
13.5 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
876 tons
Lowest 49%
Walmart Supercenter #5402
🕰️
4650 W North Ave
Wholesale Club/Supercenter
13.5 kg/sqft
1,913 tons
Juvenile Courthouse
🕰️
2245 W. Ogden Ave.
Courthouse
13.5 kg/sqft
5,553 tons
Beth Anne Extended Living
🕰️
1143-53 N Lavergne
Multifamily Housing
13.4 kg/sqft
1,073 tons
Hotel Monaco Chicago
225 N Wabash
Hotel
13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
1,649 tons
Highest 29%
King Syke LLC
🕰️
2545 S King Drive
Medical Office
13.4 kg/sqft
2,048 tons
Friend Family Health Center at University of Chicago
800 E 55th St
Medical Office
13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
979 tons
Highest 46%
Lurie Children's Faculty Office Building
155 E Superior St
Office
13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
1,109 tons
Highest 41%
533 E 33RD PL
533 E 33RD PL
Multifamily Housing
13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
1,441 tons
Highest 33%
NMH Arkes Family Pavilion
(Northwestern)
676 N St Clair St
Medical Office
13.4 kg/sqft
Highest 6%
9,026 tons
Highest 3%
Page 19 of 226 (Building #271 to #285)

Data Source: Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data (opens in a new tab)