what are the wider applications of roi 
recently certain investors and businesses have taken an interest in the development of new forms of rois called social return on investment sroi sroi was initially developed in the late 1990s and takes into account broader impacts of projects using extra financial value i e social and environmental metrics not currently reflected in conventional financial accounts sroi helps understand the value proposition of certain environmental social and governance esg criteria used in socially responsible investing sri practices 12 for instance a company may decide to recycle water in its factories and replace its lighting with all led bulbs these undertakings have an immediate cost that may negatively impact traditional roi however the net benefit to society and the environment could lead to a positive sroi there are several other new variations of rois that have been developed for particular purposes social media statistics roi pinpoints the effectiveness of social media campaigns for example how many clicks or likes are generated for a unit of effort similarly marketing statistics roi tries to identify the return attributable to advertising or marketing campaigns so called learning roi relates to the amount of information learned and retained as a return on education or skills training as the world progresses and the economy changes several other niche forms of roi are sure to be developed in the future 