Crucially, this metric is simple to apply industrially, as a production facility can measure how much material enters the site and how much leaves as product and waste, thereby directly giving an accurate global E-factor for the site. The table above shows that oil companies produce a lot less waste than pharmaceuticals as a percentage of material processed. This reflects the fact that the profit margins in the oil industry require them to minimise waste and find uses for products which would normally be discarded as waste. By contrast the pharmaceutical sector is more focused on molecule manufacture and quality. The (currently) high profit margins within the sector mean that there is less concern about the comparatively large amounts of waste that are produced (especially considering the volumes used) although it has to be noted that, despite the percentage waste and E-factor being high, the pharmaceutical section produces much lower tonnage of waste than any other sector. This table encouraged a number of large pharmaceutical companies to commence “green” chemistry programs.