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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.)
105 W MADISON ST
105 W MADISON ST
Office
10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
1,445 tons
Highest 33%
Columbus Plaza
233 E Wacker Dr
Multifamily Housing
10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
4,561 tons
Highest 8%
Freehand Hotel
19 E OHIO ST
Hotel
10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
755 tons
Lowest 43%
The Field Museum
🚩
1400 S Lake Shore Dr
Mixed Use Property
10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
13,157 tons
#39 Highest
NBC Tower
🚩
455 N Cityfront Plaza Dr
Office
10.3 kg/sqft
Highest 12%
9,710 tons
Highest 2%
Abbott
🕰️
947 E 58th St
Laboratory
10.3 kg/sqft
1,063 tons
4747 S DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR DR
🕰️
4747 S DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR DR
Multifamily Housing
10.2 kg/sqft
2,505 tons
Centennial Hall
(DePaul)
2345 N Sheffield Ave
College/University
10.2 kg/sqft
Highest 13%
908 tons
Highest 49%
1555 Astor Condo
1555 N Astor St
Multifamily Housing
10.2 kg/sqft
Highest 13%
3,149 tons
Highest 13%
5220 S. Pulaski Road
🕰️
5220 S Pulaski Rd
Other - Mall
10.2 kg/sqft
626 tons
Piper's Alley
230 W North Ave
Mixed Use Property
10.2 kg/sqft
Highest 13%
2,237 tons
Highest 20%
Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy
🕰️
2520 S Western Ave
K-12 School
10.2 kg/sqft
953 tons
St Paul House(2018)
🕰️
3800 N California Avenue
Senior Care Community
10.2 kg/sqft
1,214 tons
Claridge House
1244 N Dearborn St
Hotel
10.2 kg/sqft
Highest 13%
857 tons
Lowest 49%
101 113 W DIVISION ST
101 113 W DIVISION ST
Multifamily Housing
10.2 kg/sqft
Highest 13%
590 tons
Lowest 33%
Page 35 of 226 (Building #511 to #525)

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