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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.)
Moxy Chicago Downtown
530 N La Salle Dr
Hotel
10.5 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
654 tons
Lowest 37%
Damen Student Center-ID#254161
🕰️
(Loyola)
6511 N Sheridan Rd
College/University
10.5 kg/sqft
1,129 tons
6000 6038 N CICERO AVE
6000 6038 N CICERO AVE
Multifamily Housing
10.5 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
2,357 tons
Highest 19%
919 S California Ave
919 S California Ave
Other
10.5 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
889 tons
Lowest 50%
Scholars Corner Apartments
🕰️
5100 5110 S CORNELL AVE
Multifamily Housing
10.5 kg/sqft
632 tons
845 N KINGSBURY
(CHA)
845 N KINGSBURY
Multifamily Housing
10.5 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
915 tons
Highest 49%
Chicago State University Campus
🚩
9501 S Martin Luther King Dr
College/University
10.5 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
12,346 tons
#46 Highest
Harlem-Foster Shopping Center
7240 W Foster Ave
Strip Mall
10.5 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
2,886 tons
Highest 15%
UNO Soccer Academy High School
5025 S ST LOUIS
K-12 School
10.4 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
802 tons
Lowest 46%
Owens-CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
11445 S State St
K-12 School
10.4 kg/sqft
785 tons
330 W Webster Ave
330 W Webster Ave
K-12 School
10.4 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
2,423 tons
Highest 18%
Marillac St. Vincent Family Services
212 S Francisco Ave
Pre-school/Daycare
10.4 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
1,079 tons
Highest 43%
7000-7010 S. Pulaski Road
7000 7010 S Pulaski Rd
Strip Mall
10.4 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
667 tons
Lowest 38%
Wyndham Grand Chicago Riverfront
71 E Wacker Dr
Hotel
10.4 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
3,965 tons
Highest 9%
CCC District Office
🕰️
226 West Jackson Blvd.
Office
10.4 kg/sqft
2,352 tons
Page 33 of 226 (Building #481 to #495)

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