Electrify Chicago
An independent tool for viewing City of Chicago building data
According to the
2022 Chicago Climate Action Plan
,
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.
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!
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. 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.) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Alice B. Sharp Building
🕰️
(SAIC)
37 S Wabash Ave
| College/University | 8.9 kg/sqft  | 2,033 tons |
|
Target, Chicago Peterson Ave (2079)
2112 W Peterson Ave
| Retail Store | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
| 1,427 tons
Highest 33%
|
|
International Tower
🕰️
8550 W Bryn Mawr Ave
| Office | 8.9 kg/sqft | 2,758 tons |
|
Cook County Building
118 N Clark St
| Office | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
| 5,658 tons
Highest 6%
|
|
1605 E 50TH ST
1605 E 50TH ST
| Multifamily Housing | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
| 529 tons 
Lowest 29%
|
|
2111 W Roosevelt Rd
2111 W Roosevelt Rd
| Office | 8.9 kg/sqft
Highest 19%
| 4,071 tons
Highest 9%
|
|
Malcolm X College & School of Health Sciences
🕰️
(City Colleges)
1900 W JACKSON BLVD
| College/University | 8.8 kg/sqft | 4,774 tons |
|
Tonti -CPS
(CPS)
5815 S Homan Ave
| K-12 School | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 20%
| 788 tons
Lowest 45%
|
|
Barton Elementary -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
7650 S Wolcott Ave
| K-12 School | 8.8 kg/sqft | 725 tons |
|
Altgeld Elementary-CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
1340 W 71st St
| K-12 School | 8.8 kg/sqft | 611 tons |
|
CarrollRosenwald-CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
2601 W 80TH ST
| K-12 School | 8.8 kg/sqft | 555 tons |
|
Burr Elementary, Jonathan -CPS
(CPS)
1621 W Wabansia Ave
| K-12 School | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 20%
| 535 tons
Lowest 29%
|
|
Washington HS , George -CPS
(CPS)
3535 E 114th St
| K-12 School | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 20%
| 1,885 tons
Highest 24%
|
|
Presence Resurrection Life Center
7370 W Talcott Ave
| Senior Living Community | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 20%
| 789 tons
Lowest 45%
|
|
Kennedy HS / Kinzie ES -CPS
(CPS)
6325 W 56th St
| K-12 School | 8.8 kg/sqft
Highest 20%
| 2,047 tons
Highest 22%
|
Data Source:
Chicago Energy Benchmarking Data