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Ecological efficiency is a combination of several related efficiencies that describe resource utilization and the extent to which resources are converted into biomass. [1] Exploitation efficiency is the amount of food ingested divided by the amount of prey production (/)
Microeconomic reform is the implementation of policies that aim to reduce economic distortions via deregulation, and move toward economic efficiency. However, there is no clear theoretical basis for the belief that removing a market distortion will always increase economic efficiency.
For example, larger national players such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD 2002), European Commission (EU 2005), European Environment Agency (EEA) and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) have all recognized that eco-efficiency is a practical approach that businesses should adopt ...
In population ecology and economics, optimum sustainable yield is the level of effort (LOE) that maximizes the difference between total revenue and total cost. Or, where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. This level of effort maximizes the economic profit, or rent, of the resource being utilized.
Furthermore, benefits and costs can depend on a forager's community. For example, a forager living in a hive would most likely forage in a manner that would maximize efficiency for its colony rather than itself. [5] By identifying the currency, one can construct a hypothesis about which benefits and costs are important to the forager in question.
Efficiency is often measured as the ratio of useful output to total input, which can be expressed with the mathematical formula r=P/C, where P is the amount of useful output ("product") produced per the amount C ("cost") of resources consumed.
For example, when constructing an optimality model for bee foraging time, researchers looked at whether energetic efficiency (energy gained/energy spent) or net rate of gain ((energy gained − energy spent)/time) was optimized. It was found that the bees maximized energetic efficiency when foraging for nectar. [4]
It has been noted that improvements in resource efficiency can occur at production, consumption, and end of product life stages. [2] Resource efficiency measures, methods, and aims are quite similar to those of resource productivity/resource intensity and of the slightly more environmentally-inclined concept of ecological efficiency/eco-efficiency.