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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.

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📰 $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.)
Knight Buildling
549 W Randolph St
Office
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
786 tons
Lowest 45%
Park Place Tower I CA
🚩
655 W Irving Park Rd
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
7,378 tons
Highest 4%
Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago
🚩
401 N Wabash Ave
Mixed Use Property
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
15,949 tons
#25 Highest
2921 S MICHIGAN AVE
2921 S MICHIGAN AVE
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
501 tons
Lowest 26%
Kinzie Station
330 N Jefferson Ct
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
1,694 tons
Highest 27%
East WrigleyView Village Condominiums
737 W CORNELIA AVE
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
381 tons
Lowest 15%
Residence Hall and Student Center: Catholic Theological Union
🕰️
5401 S CORNELL AVE
Residence Hall/Dormitory
7.5 kg/sqft
685 tons
Halsted Flats
3740 N Halsted St
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
1,729 tons
Highest 27%
65 E SCOTT ST
65 E SCOTT ST
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
1,641 tons
Highest 29%
North Harbor Tower
175 N Harbor Dr
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
5,796 tons
Highest 6%
Foxboro Properties, LLC
6201 S Emerald Dr
Other - Public Services
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
603 tons
Lowest 34%
The Buckingham
🕰️
59 E. Van Buren
Residence Hall/Dormitory
7.5 kg/sqft
1,578 tons
Travelodge by Wyndham Downtown Chicago
🕰️
61 67 E HARRISON ST
Hotel
7.5 kg/sqft
1,047 tons
2601 2607 N MILWAUKEE AVE
2601 2607 N MILWAUKEE AVE
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
343 tons
Lowest 12%
Kimball Station
🕰️
4730 N Kimball Ave
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
561 tons
Page 77 of 226 (Building #1141 to #1155)

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