Skip to Main Content

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.)
Prosser Career Acad HS -CPS
(CPS)
2148 N Long Ave
K-12 School
10.7 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
2,238 tons
Highest 20%
310 S PEORIA ST
310 S PEORIA ST
Multifamily Housing
10.7 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
2,015 tons
Highest 23%
(ILCH720) - Burnham Pointe [external]
🕰️
720 S. Clark Street
Multifamily Housing
10.7 kg/sqft
4,105 tons
2303 N CLYBOURN AVE
2303 N CLYBOURN AVE
Multifamily Housing
10.7 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
1,514 tons
Highest 31%
60 W ERIE ST
60 W ERIE ST
Multifamily Housing
10.7 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
736 tons
Lowest 42%
600 W Chicago
🚨
600 W Chicago
Office
10.7 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
24,266 tons
#8 Highest
The Jeffery Cyril Building
🕰️
7144-48 S Jeffery Blvd
Multifamily Housing
10.7 kg/sqft
604 tons
430 W. Erie
🕰️
430 W Erie St
Office
10.6 kg/sqft
730 tons
Palmer House Office Center - Thor Equities
🕰️
27 E Monroe St
Office
10.6 kg/sqft
646 tons
Smith -CPS
🕰️
(CPS)
730 E 103rd St
K-12 School
10.6 kg/sqft
814 tons
1165 N Clark St
1165 N Clark St
Office
10.6 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
1,084 tons
Highest 42%
American Library Association
🕰️
40-50 E. Huron
Office
10.6 kg/sqft
1,105 tons
#1976 Lincoln Park
2647 2679 N Halsted St
Retail Store
10.6 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
853 tons
Lowest 49%
AMA Plaza
🚩
330 N Wabash Av
Office
10.6 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
19,786 tons
#13 Highest
North Park University
(North Park)
5148 N KEDZIE AVE
College/University
10.6 kg/sqft
Highest 11%
1,203 tons
Highest 39%
Page 32 of 226 (Building #466 to #480)

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