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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.)
Alden Princeton Rehab & Health Care Center
255 W 69th St
Senior Living Community
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
881 tons
Lowest 50%
-
7425 S South Shore Dr
Multifamily Housing
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
609 tons
Lowest 34%
280 Building
🕰️
280 S Columbus Dr
College/University
11.0 kg/sqft
1,561 tons
National Teachers Academy -CPS
(CPS)
55 W Cermak Rd
K-12 School
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
1,728 tons
Highest 27%
Humboldt Park
🕰️
1440 North Sacramento
Other - Recreation
11.0 kg/sqft
628 tons
4343 Clarendon Condominium Association
4343 N Clarendon Ave
Multifamily Housing
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
3,892 tons
Highest 9%
Adler Planetarium
1300 S Lake Shore Dr
Museum
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
1,923 tons
Highest 24%
Thomas F Flannery Apartments
(CHA)
1531 N Clybourn Ave
Multifamily Housing
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
1,100 tons
Highest 42%
The Maxwell
1100 S Canal St
Strip Mall
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
2,649 tons
Highest 17%
321 N CENTRAL AVE
321 N CENTRAL AVE
Residential Care Facility
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
781 tons
Lowest 45%
1900 1912 W PRATT BLVD
1900 1912 W PRATT BLVD
Multifamily Housing
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
532 tons
Lowest 29%
Allegro Hotel and Palace Theater
151 171 W Randolph St
Hotel
11.0 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
4,218 tons
Highest 9%
7500 S SOUTH SHORE DR
🕰️
7500 S SOUTH SHORE DR
Multifamily Housing
11.0 kg/sqft
890 tons
400 W HURON ST
400 W HURON ST
Multifamily Housing
10.9 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
855 tons
Lowest 49%
Salvation Army Freedom Center
825 N CHRISTIANA AVE
Residence Hall/Dormitory
10.9 kg/sqft
Highest 10%
2,005 tons
Highest 23%
Page 29 of 226 (Building #421 to #435)

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