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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.)
1624 W DIVISION ST
🕰️
1624 W DIVISION ST
Multifamily Housing
9.4 kg/sqft
587 tons
4180 N MARINE DR
4180 N MARINE DR
Multifamily Housing
9.4 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
1,032 tons
Highest 44%
400 W Superior St
(Chicago)
400 W Superior St
Office
9.4 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
1,224 tons
Highest 38%
200 W GRAND AVE
200 W GRAND AVE
Multifamily Housing
9.4 kg/sqft
Highest 16%
1,379 tons
Highest 34%
1440 N Dayton Street
1440 N Dayton Street
Office
9.3 kg/sqft
Highest 17%
611 tons
Lowest 34%
Kedzie Plaza
🕰️
4756-4770 South Kedzie Avenue
Strip Mall
9.3 kg/sqft
479 tons
4540 W Belmont Ave
4540 W Belmont Ave
K-12 School
9.3 kg/sqft
Highest 17%
537 tons
Lowest 29%
Edelstone Center
6030 S Ellis Ave
Office
9.3 kg/sqft
Highest 17%
556 tons
Lowest 31%
Ellington Elementary -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
243 N Parkside Ave
K-12 School
9.3 kg/sqft
1,044 tons
Randolph Elementary -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
7316 S Hoyne Ave
K-12 School
9.3 kg/sqft
731 tons
Rowe-CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
1424 N Cleaver St
K-12 School
9.3 kg/sqft
595 tons
101 Grand
101 W Grand Ave
Office
9.3 kg/sqft
Highest 17%
579 tons
Lowest 32%
Altgeld Gardens
🚩
(CHA)
925 E 130th St
Multifamily Housing
9.3 kg/sqft
Highest 17%
11,051 tons
Highest 2%
Brennemann Elementary, Joseph -CPS
(CPS)
4251 N Clarendon Ave
K-12 School
9.3 kg/sqft
Highest 17%
498 tons
Lowest 26%
30 E Elm Condo Association
30 E ELM ST
Multifamily Housing
9.3 kg/sqft
Highest 17%
832 tons
Lowest 48%
Page 44 of 226 (Building #646 to #660)

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