Cumulative average SFE above a minimum column density contour as a function of column density for a selection of CAFFEINE (red) and nearby clouds (green and orange). The shaded areas mark the corresponding uncertainties. For the CAFFEINE sample, the weighted average of the two SFE estimates are shown. The purple markers indicate averages of former works, where the bars show the interquartile range of the cloud sample. For comparison, the blue and black curves show the two simple models of Sect. 6.1 for the SFE (ϵ_ff and filament scenarios). See Figs. 7 and 8 for more details on the observed SFEs.