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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.)
Home Depot, #1986 47th & Western
4555 S Western Blvd
Retail Store
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
779 tons
Lowest 45%
1200 N LAKE SHORE DR
1200 N LAKE SHORE DR
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
724 tons
Lowest 42%
1519 1525 W WARREN BLVD
1519 1525 W WARREN BLVD
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
385 tons
Lowest 15%
Dearborn Plaza
(CHA)
1030 1032 N DEARBORN ST
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
592 tons
Lowest 33%
Granville Apartments, LLC
🕰️
6230 6236 N KENMORE AVE
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
1,105 tons
640 N LaSalle Dr
640 N LaSalle St
Office
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
2,111 tons
Highest 21%
151 N Franklin St
151 N Franklin St
Office
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
7,127 tons
Highest 4%
1000 N LASALLE DR
1000 N LASALLE DR
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
901 tons
Highest 49%
20 S Clark
20 S Clark St
Office
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
3,467 tons
Highest 11%
The Jewelers Building
35 E Wacker Dr
Office
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
4,971 tons
Highest 7%
161 North Clark
161 N Clark
Office
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
8,147 tons
Highest 3%
Perspectives Charter Schools - Auburn Gresham Campus
🕰️
(CPS)
8131 S May Street
K-12 School
7.5 kg/sqft
2,256 tons
Diversey Square Associates II
🕰️
3212 West Diversey Ave
Multifamily Housing
7.4 kg/sqft
349 tons
Dore Elementary School
🕰️
7134 W 65Th St
K-12 School
7.4 kg/sqft
836 tons
710 W. Grand Apartments
🕰️
710 W Grand Ave
Multifamily Housing
7.4 kg/sqft
668 tons
Page 78 of 226 (Building #1156 to #1170)

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