This paper provides various “contractivity” results for linear operators of the form I−C where C are positive contractions on real ordered Banach spaces X. If A generates a positive contraction semigroup in Lebesgue spaces Lpfalse(μfalse), we show (M. Pierre's result) that A(λ−A)−1 is a “contraction on the positive cone”, i.e. Afalse(λ−Afalse)−1x≤x for all x∈L+pfalse(μfalse)false(λ>0false), provided that p⩾2. We show also that this result is not true for 1 ⩽ p<2. We give an extension of M. Pierre's result to general ordered Banach spaces X under a suitable uniform monotony assumption on the duality map on the positive cone X+. We deduce from this result that, in such spaces, I−C is a contraction on X+ for any positive projection C with norm 1. We give also a direct proof (by E. Ricard) of this last result if additionally the norm is smooth on the positive cone. For any positive contraction C on base‐norm spaces X (e.g. in real L1false(μfalse) spaces or in preduals of hermitian part of von Neumann algebras), we show that Nfalse(u−Cufalse)≤u for all u∈X where N is the canonical half‐norm in X. For any positive contraction C on order‐unit spaces X (e.g. on the hermitian part of a C* algebra), we show that I−C is a contraction on X+. Applications to relative operator bounds, ergodic projections and conditional expectations are given.