The energy concept has been extended to compare the hysteretic performance between various structural systems. As a result, the energy absorption efficiency is defined as the cumulative energy absorption capacity of a structural system normalized by that of the elasto-perfectly plastic system as a benchmark for comparisons. For this, the construction of energy curves from the experimental results obtained by cyclic loading tests is required. Using the proposed procedure, structures differing from each other in geometry, material and construction can be relatively and objectively compared for seismic performance. Also the beauty of this method is in its irrelevance to the structural failure mode. The proposed procedure was validated by application to the experimental results of two different specimens.