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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.)
21 E CHESTNUT ST
21 E CHESTNUT ST
Multifamily Housing
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
1,118 tons
Highest 41%
Saint Vincent Center
721 N Lasalle St
Office
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
858 tons
Lowest 49%
700 N Michigan Ave LLC
700 N Michigan Ave
Retail Store
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
1,608 tons
Highest 29%
The Boyce Building
500 - 510 N Dearborn St
Office
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
1,352 tons
Highest 35%
Haugan Middle (Aspira Charter)
🕰️
3729 W Leland Ave
K-12 School
9.1 kg/sqft
996 tons
Disney Magnet -CPS
(CPS)
4140 N Marine Dr
K-12 School
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
2,373 tons
Highest 19%
Burnham Center
🕰️
111 W Washington
Office
9.1 kg/sqft
5,417 tons
111 N Canal
111 N Canal St
Office
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
8,908 tons
Highest 3%
Harris Bank Building
🕰️
115 S LaSalle St
Office
9.1 kg/sqft
13,824 tons
Alta Grand Central
221 W Harrison St
Multifamily Housing
9.0 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
2,131 tons
Highest 21%
504 N. Green St.
🕰️
504 N GREEN ST
Multifamily Housing
9.0 kg/sqft
1,129 tons
Fox Ford Lincoln Chicago
2501 N ELSTON AVE
Vehicle Dealership
9.0 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
1,315 tons
Highest 36%
Peter V. Byrne Hall
(DePaul)
2219 N Kenmore Ave
College/University
9.0 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
699 tons
Lowest 40%
Target, Chicago Mid North (1437)
2939 W Addison St
Retail Store
9.0 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
1,725 tons
Highest 27%
Providence Englewood Bunche Elementary Charter
6515 S Ashland Ave
K-12 School
9.0 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
485 tons
Lowest 25%
Page 48 of 226 (Building #706 to #720)

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