ROI Today – Are we productive?

Take cars, for example. It takes 75,000 gallons of water to produce one ton of steel. Since the average car contains about 2,150 pounds of steel, that means over 80,000 gallons of water is needed to produce the finished steel for one car.

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An issue that I will be tackling in upcoming weeks is the amount of resources we spend versus what we produce.

I have had a recurring thought on many a commute that the ratio of products and services rendered versus the cost of production is wildly askew.

Many if not most people drive two tons of steel to and from work  a day. You don’t have to even take carbon into consideration to see why this is potentially wasteful from an ROI standpoint.

First there is the metal itself, then there is the time in production and maintenance, then there is the cost of the fuel. Then there are hidden costs such as the 80,000 gallons of water it takes to produce a car.

Understanding how to balance the ratio of resource use and productivity requires abstaining from finger-pointing and taking a long hard look at what’s actually happening.

My goal is to find out how to produce more than we consume.

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Here are some links that can provide insights into the scale of consumption for one very vital resource called water.

• http://www.gracelinks.org/285/the-hidden-water-in-everyday-products
• http://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/national-water-footprint/virtual-water-trade/