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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.)
Quadrangle House
6700 S Shore Dr
Multifamily Housing
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
2,181 tons
Highest 21%
1850-1856 N Clark St
1850-1856 N Clark St
Multifamily Housing
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
1,894 tons
Highest 24%
Professional Office Building
840 W Irving Park Rd
Medical Office
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
514 tons
Lowest 28%
Rowe Clark Math and Science Academy
🕰️
3645 W. Chicago
K-12 School
9.9 kg/sqft
510 tons
CDM Center
(DePaul)
243 S Wabash Ave
College/University
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
1,832 tons
Highest 25%
939 North Avenue Collection,LLC
913 949 W North Ave
Mixed Use Property
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
2,177 tons
Highest 21%
Chicago Bar Association
321 S Plymouth Ct
Office
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
978 tons
Highest 46%
1801 S WABASH AVE
1801 S WABASH AVE
Multifamily Housing
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
586 tons
Lowest 33%
Sheridan Edgewater
🕰️
5200 N Sheridan Rd
Multifamily Housing
9.9 kg/sqft
1,227 tons
IIT Research Tower
🕰️
(Illinois Tech)
10 West 35th Street
College/University
9.9 kg/sqft
3,887 tons
1616 E 50TH PL
1616 E 50TH PL
Multifamily Housing
9.8 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
582 tons
Lowest 32%
The Albert/EMC2
228 E ONTARIO ST
Hotel
9.8 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
1,139 tons
Highest 41%
Mercy Family Health Center at Oakwood Shores
3753 3755 S Cottage Grove Ave
Multifamily Housing
9.8 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
712 tons
Lowest 41%
3110 Sheridan Condominiums
🕰️
3110 N Sheridan Rd
Multifamily Housing
9.8 kg/sqft
1,175 tons
Haymarket Center
932 W Washington Blvd
Residential Care Facility
9.8 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
1,469 tons
Highest 32%
Page 38 of 226 (Building #556 to #570)

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