I get your bitter cynicism, but as someone who has worked with industrial processes, this is exactly how we quantify things. The world is insanely inefficient,

I get your bitter cynicism, but as someone who has worked with industrial processes, this is exactly how we quantify things. The world is insanely inefficient, and those inefficiencies are REAL even if we have been that inefficient since prehistoric time. All of the points you mention are actual opportunities for improvement, and a 1% reduction in any of them would amount to an enormous savings in water use, fuel use, increase in long term profit, etc.