Skip to Main Content

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.)
Cardenas Elementary -CPS
(CPS)
2345 S Millard Ave
K-12 School
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
640 tons
Lowest 36%
Williams Multiplex Elementary -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
2710 S Dearborn St
K-12 School
4.3 kg/sqft
637 tons
Field Elementary -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
7019 N Ashland Ave
K-12 School
4.3 kg/sqft
455 tons
Nettelhorst Elementary -CPS
(CPS)
3252 N Broadway Ave
K-12 School
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
452 tons
Lowest 22%
Ruggles, Martha M -CPS
(CPS)
7831 S Prairie Ave
K-12 School
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
424 tons
Lowest 19%
Faraday Elementary, Michael -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
3250 W Monroe St
K-12 School
4.3 kg/sqft
268 tons
Sanctuary Hall
2358 N Sheffield Ave
College/University
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
443 tons
Lowest 21%
990 West Fullerton Bldg
(DePaul)
990 W Fullerton Ave
College/University
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
399 tons
Lowest 17%
Lincoln Perry Apts
3245 S Prairie Ave
Multifamily Housing
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
1,345 tons
Highest 35%
Westhaven Superblock
(CHA)
1815 W Monroe St
Multifamily Housing
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
436 tons
Lowest 20%
Von Steuben Metro Science Center -CPS
(CPS)
5039 N Kimball Ave
K-12 School
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
1,070 tons
Highest 43%
Lake Shore Condominium Association
1440 N LAKESHORE DR
Multifamily Housing
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
1,305 tons
Highest 36%
Ontario Street Lofts CA
411 W Ontario St
Multifamily Housing
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
1,114 tons
Highest 41%
530 North Lake Shore Drive
530 N Lake Shore Dr
Multifamily Housing
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
2,211 tons
Highest 20%
Tiara Homeowners Association
6145 6147 N SHERIDAN RD
Multifamily Housing
4.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 14%
920 tons
Highest 48%
Page 194 of 226 (Building #2896 to #2910)

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