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.

Chicago Buildings by Greenhouse Gas Intensity

Note: Data From Large Buildings in 2022

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.

Additionally, note that all tons specified are metric tons.

Name / Address Primary Property Type GHG Intensity
(kg CO2 eq./sqft)
Total GHG Emissions
(tons CO2 eq.)
MiCA
2733 W BELDEN AVE
Multifamily Housing
6.5 kg/sqft
Highest 49%
1,342 tons
Highest 35%
International House
(UChicago)
1414 E 59th St
Residence Hall/Dormitory
6.5 kg/sqft
Highest 49%
1,535 tons
Highest 31%
Shields Main-CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
4250 S Rockwell St
K-12 School
6.5 kg/sqft
833 tons
Catholic Charities Tolton Manor
6345 S Stewart
Multifamily Housing
6.5 kg/sqft
Highest 49%
454 tons
Lowest 22%
Bouchet Elementary Acad -CPS
(CPS)
7355 S Jeffrey Blvd
K-12 School
6.5 kg/sqft
Highest 49%
925 tons
Highest 48%
Avalon Park Elementary -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
8045 S Kenwood Ave
K-12 School
6.5 kg/sqft
568 tons
Columbia Explorers Elementary Academy -CPS
(CPS)
4520 S Kedzie Ave
K-12 School
6.5 kg/sqft
Highest 49%
698 tons
Lowest 40%
Sexton -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
6020 S Langely Ave
K-12 School
6.5 kg/sqft
684 tons
Richards Career Academy HS -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
5009 S Laflin St
K-12 School
6.5 kg/sqft
675 tons
Linne Elementary -CPS
(CPS)
3221 N Sacramento Ave
K-12 School
6.5 kg/sqft
Highest 49%
692 tons
Lowest 39%
Park Manor Elementary -CPS
(CPS)
7037 S Rhodes Ave
K-12 School
6.5 kg/sqft
Highest 49%
405 tons
Lowest 17%
Irving Elementary - CPS
(CPS)
749 S Oakley Blvd
K-12 School
6.5 kg/sqft
Highest 49%
357 tons
Lowest 13%
Hilliard Homes Phase I Limited Partnership
2031 S Clark St
Multifamily Housing
6.5 kg/sqft
Highest 49%
1,126 tons
Highest 41%
Lorraine Hansberry Senior Apartments
(CHA)
5670 W Lake St
Multifamily Housing
6.5 kg/sqft
Highest 49%
690 tons
Lowest 39%
Hyde Park Academy HS -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
6220 S Stony Island Ave
K-12 School
6.5 kg/sqft
2,112 tons
Page 112 of 226 (Building #1666 to #1680)

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