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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.)
Midway Square
5109 5151 S PULASKI RD
Strip Mall
6.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 48%
351 tons
Lowest 12%
Chicago City Day School
🕰️
541 West Hawthorne Place
K-12 School
6.3 kg/sqft
546 tons
Parkside Elementary Academy -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
6938 S E End Ave
K-12 School
6.3 kg/sqft
472 tons
Flair Tower
222 W Erie St
Multifamily Housing
6.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 48%
1,617 tons
Highest 29%
4827 N SHERIDAN RD
4827 N SHERIDAN RD
Multifamily Housing
6.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 48%
1,033 tons
Highest 44%
00806-The Hallmark
2960 N Lake Shore Dr
Multifamily Housing
6.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 48%
2,731 tons
Highest 16%
1111 N. Dearborn St
1111 N. Dearborn St
Multifamily Housing
6.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 48%
2,087 tons
Highest 22%
Chicago Swissotel
323 E Wacker Dr
Hotel
6.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 48%
5,621 tons
Highest 6%
537 S DEARBORN ST
537 S DEARBORN ST
Multifamily Housing
6.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 48%
490 tons
Lowest 26%
1380
🕰️
4730 W Irving Park Rd
Retail Store
6.3 kg/sqft
2,279 tons
Fairmont Care Center
🕰️
5061 N PULASKI RD
Senior Living Community
6.3 kg/sqft
630 tons
70 76 E CEDAR ST
70 76 E CEDAR ST
Multifamily Housing
6.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 48%
478 tons
Lowest 24%
2510 W IRVING PARK RD
2510 W IRVING PARK RD
Multifamily Housing
6.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 48%
205 tons
Lowest 2%
5501 5511 W WASHINGTON BLVD
5501 5511 W WASHINGTON BLVD
Multifamily Housing
6.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 48%
753 tons
Lowest 43%
544 W MELROSE ST
544 W MELROSE ST
Multifamily Housing
6.3 kg/sqft
Lowest 48%
320 tons
Lowest 10%
Page 121 of 226 (Building #1801 to #1815)

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