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.)
181 West Madison
181 W Madison St
Office
7.6 kg/sqft
Highest 30%
8,271 tons
Highest 3%
Presidents Plaza 2
8700 W Bryn Mawr Ave
Office
7.6 kg/sqft
Highest 30%
3,370 tons
Highest 11%
510 534 W ADDISON ST
510 534 W ADDISON ST
Multifamily Housing
7.6 kg/sqft
Highest 30%
525 tons
Lowest 28%
630 N Franklin Condominium Association
630 N Franklin St
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
1,677 tons
Highest 28%
2950 North Sheridan
2950 N SHERIDAN RD
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
1,012 tons
Highest 44%
Crown Center-ID#254166
🕰️
(Loyola)
1001 1025 W Loyola Ave
College/University
7.5 kg/sqft
617 tons
North Park Village Apartments - Building G
5801 N Pulaski Rd - Bldg G
Residential Care Facility
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
1,440 tons
Highest 33%
Argyle Apartments
840 850 W Argyle St
Multifamily Housing
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
444 tons
Lowest 21%
Gateway Center
10808 - 10830 S Doty Ave W
Retail Store
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
500 tons
Lowest 26%
Betty Shabazz Intl Charter / Barbra A Sizemore -CPS
(CPS)
6936 S Hermitage Ave
K-12 School
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
525 tons
Lowest 28%
Payton College Prep HS -CPS
(CPS)
1010 N Wells St
K-12 School
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
1,619 tons
Highest 29%
Dodge -CPS
(CPS)
2651 W Washington Blvd
Office
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
540 tons
Lowest 30%
Farnsworth Elementary -CPS
(CPS)
5414 N Linder Ave
K-12 School
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
615 tons
Lowest 35%
Hammond Elementary -CPS
(CPS)
2819 W 21st Pl
K-12 School
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
446 tons
Lowest 21%
Arts & Letters Hall
(DePaul)
2315 N Kenmore Ave
College/University
7.5 kg/sqft
Highest 31%
837 tons
Lowest 48%
Page 76 of 226 (Building #1126 to #1140)

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