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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.)
3594
🕰️
5050 S Kedzie Ave
Retail Store
12.2 kg/sqft
1,452 tons
Ascension St Elizabeth Professional Office Building
🕰️
1431 N Western Ave
Medical Office
12.1 kg/sqft
860 tons
The Private Residences at Ontario Place Condominiu
10 E Ontario St
Multifamily Housing
12.1 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
5,918 tons
Highest 5%
WTTW 11 - Main Campus
5400 N St Louis Ave
Office
12.1 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
2,206 tons
Highest 20%
The Clare
🚩
55 E Pearson St
Multifamily Housing
12.1 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
7,570 tons
Highest 4%
Aurora Chicago Lakeshore Hospital
🕰️
4840 N. Marine Drive
Other - Specialty Hospital
12.1 kg/sqft
619 tons
Villa at Windsor Park
2649 E 75th St
Senior Living Community
12.1 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
1,183 tons
Highest 39%
Sherman Plaza
🕰️
161-205 W. 87th Street
Other - Mall
12.1 kg/sqft
734 tons
Block 37
🕰️
108 N. State Street
Multifamily Housing
12.1 kg/sqft
12,294 tons
Marquette Building
🕰️
140 South Dearborn Street
Office
12.1 kg/sqft
4,492 tons
Ace Hotel Chicago
🕰️
311 N MORGAN ST
Hotel
12.0 kg/sqft
1,541 tons
Gilman Smith
🕰️
5835 S Drexel Ave
Laboratory
12.0 kg/sqft
2,694 tons
NortHigh School ide College Prep HS -CPS
(CPS)
5501 N Kedzie Ave
K-12 School
12.0 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
2,673 tons
Highest 16%
4640 S Halsted St
4640 S Halsted St
Supermarket/Grocery Store
12.0 kg/sqft
Highest 8%
1,753 tons
Highest 27%
Union League Club Of Chicago
🕰️
65 W Jackson Blvd
Hotel
12.0 kg/sqft
3,728 tons
Page 24 of 226 (Building #346 to #360)

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