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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.)
900 North Michigan
🚨
900 North Michigan
Mixed Use Property
9.8 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
20,835 tons
#11 Highest
Senn Achievement Academy -CPS
(CPS)
5900 N Glenwood Ave
K-12 School
9.8 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
2,853 tons
Highest 15%
1061 E 41ST PL
(CHA)
1061 E 41ST PL
Multifamily Housing
9.8 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
1,063 tons
Highest 43%
30 N Michigan Ave
30 N Michigan Ave
Office
9.8 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
2,167 tons
Highest 21%
Atlas 2 E 8th St
2 E 8th St
Multifamily Housing
9.8 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
2,587 tons
Highest 17%
100 South State Street
100 South State Street
Office
9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
674 tons
Lowest 39%
Cottage View Terrace Apartments
4829 S Cottage Grove
Multifamily Housing
9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
723 tons
Lowest 42%
Ronald McDonald House near Lurie Children's
211 E Grand Ave
Hotel
9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
1,029 tons
Highest 44%
Woodlawn Social Services Center
950 E 61st St
Office
9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
642 tons
Lowest 36%
6140 S DREXEL AVE
6140 S DREXEL AVE
Multifamily Housing
9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
784 tons
Lowest 45%
MDA City Apartments
🕰️
63 E Lake St
Multifamily Housing
9.7 kg/sqft
1,704 tons
Delaware Place Private Residences
875 N DEARBORN ST
Multifamily Housing
9.7 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
1,444 tons
Highest 33%
Northgate Landing
🕰️
7625-39 North East Lake Terrace
Multifamily Housing
9.7 kg/sqft
485 tons
1411 E 53Rd St
1411 E 53Rd St
Hotel
9.6 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
711 tons
Lowest 41%
Morningside Court
1250 W Morse Ave
Multifamily Housing
9.6 kg/sqft
Highest 15%
1,238 tons
Highest 38%
Page 40 of 226 (Building #586 to #600)

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