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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.

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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.

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.)
Aviation Administration Building
10510 W Zemke Rd
Office
10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 13%
1,659 tons
Highest 28%
750 N. Orleans
🕰️
750 N Orleans St
Office
10.0 kg/sqft
744 tons
5107 S. Blackstone Ave
5107 S. Blackstone Ave
Multifamily Housing
10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 13%
842 tons
Lowest 48%
1301 N STATE PKWY
1301 N STATE PKWY
Hotel
10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 13%
1,894 tons
Highest 24%
Drake Hotel
🚩
140 E Walton Pl
Hotel
10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 13%
6,479 tons
Highest 5%
The Salvation Army
🕰️
506 N DESPLAINES ST
Office
10.0 kg/sqft
646 tons
GAP - 1454 - STATE STREET
35 N State St
Retail Store
10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 13%
602 tons
Lowest 33%
IL0054ZZ - Clark Fedral Bldg
536 S Clark St
Office
10.0 kg/sqft
Highest 13%
6,368 tons
Highest 5%
6700 Crandon Condominium Association
6700 S Crandon Ave
Multifamily Housing
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
814 tons
Lowest 47%
1400 State Parkway Condominium Association
1400 N State Pkwy
Multifamily Housing
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
938 tons
Highest 47%
Trinity United Church of Christ
🕰️
400 W 95th St
Worship Facility
9.9 kg/sqft
775 tons
Bookstore
(UChicago)
970 E 58th St
Retail Store
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
494 tons
Lowest 26%
Kersten Physics Teaching Center
(UChicago)
5720 S Ellis Ave
College/University
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
588 tons
Lowest 33%
Cook Elementary -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
8150 S Bishop St
K-12 School
9.9 kg/sqft
973 tons
Carson, Rachel Elementary -CPS
(CPS)
5516 S Maplewood Ave
K-12 School
9.9 kg/sqft
Highest 14%
1,367 tons
Highest 35%
Page 37 of 226 (Building #541 to #555)

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