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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.)
353 N Clark St
🚩
353 N Clark St
Office
9.2 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
12,553 tons
#45 Highest
Willis Tower
🚨 📷
233 S Wacker Dr
Office
9.2 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
41,767 tons
#6 Highest
Olive-Harvey College
🕰️
(City Colleges)
10001 S Woodlawn Ave
College/University
9.2 kg/sqft
3,641 tons
Lawson Partners
🕰️
30 W Chicago
Multifamily Housing
9.2 kg/sqft
2,394 tons
The Park at Wrigley
1101 W WAVELAND AVE
Office
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
2,254 tons
Highest 20%
Union Lofts Condominium Association
🕰️
3500 S Sangamon
Multifamily Housing
9.1 kg/sqft
728 tons
2500 N Lakeview Ave
2500 N Lakeview Ave
Multifamily Housing
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
1,897 tons
Highest 24%
Eastwood Garden Limited Partnership
🕰️
6531 S. LOWE
Multifamily Housing
9.1 kg/sqft
1,608 tons
916 S Wabash Ave
(Columbia)
916 S Wabash Ave
College/University
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
605 tons
Lowest 34%
Westinghouse HS -CPS
(CPS)
3301 W Franklin Blvd
K-12 School
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
2,049 tons
Highest 22%
Raby HS -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
3545 W Fulton St
K-12 School
9.1 kg/sqft
1,416 tons
Hampton Fine & Performing Arts -CPS
(CPS)
3434 W 77th St
K-12 School
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
896 tons
Highest 49%
Andrew Jackson Language Academy - CPS
(CPS)
1340 W Harrison St
K-12 School
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
673 tons
Lowest 39%
Greeley Elementary -CPS
(CPS)
832 W Sheridan Rd
K-12 School
9.1 kg/sqft
Highest 18%
555 tons
Lowest 31%
CDOT Central Office
🕰️
(Chicago)
1501 W Pershing Rd
Office
9.1 kg/sqft
907 tons
Page 47 of 226 (Building #691 to #705)

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