Measuring eco-innovation helps us understand the overall trends and raises awareness in society. Measuring eco-innovation at the national level and making comparisons across countries may allow us to benchmark performance and foster policy learning. This paper assesses two indices developed in two different regions: The ASEM Eco-Innovation Index (ASEI) by the ASEM SMEs Eco-Innovation Center, based in Republic of Korea; and the Eco-Innovation Scoreboard (Eco-IS) developed by the Eco-Innovation Observatory, based in the European Union. This paper aims to examine and compare the features of both and attempts to obtain insights on their strengths and weaknesses. Towards this aim, our paper assesses those scoreboards against four criteria stemming from innovation analysis: (1) relevance of areas and stakeholders covered; (2) ability to indicate changes; (3) directions towards common goals; and (4) ability to facilitate further changes. We conclude both are promising, despite data shortages, and have great potential to contribute towards the sustainable development goals (SDGs), particularly with regard to the SDGs on sustainable industrialization and sustainable consumption and production. In comparison, the ASEI covers more countries than the Eco-IS. However, the ASEI has limitations on measuring indicators due to limited data availability in Asian countries. The Eco-IS is closely linked with the regional and national policies for eco-innovation in Europe, while the ASEI’s impact appears more limited, as of now. In conclusion, the research results give insights into key areas, goals and applications of eco-innovation indices, and can help upgrading eco-innovation indices. This research helps interpret the scores of two indices better and facilitate application of the scores in the multiple ways. It is expected that this research contributes to developing and modifying a global eco-innovation index and enhancing the ability of these indices to facilitate eco-innovation strategies at national levels and across relevant actors.

Eco-innovation globally emerged as an effort to implement sustainable development. States and firms established and implemented policies and strategies for eco-innovation as one route to achieving sustainable development. Eco-innovation has been facilitated in developed countries, specifically OECD members and European countries, through action plans. Recently, eco-innovation policies have emerged in developing countries. Thus, this study analyzes eco-innovation policies in Asian countries. Policies related to eco-innovation in 17 Asian countries were investigated using policy instrument categories. National policies for eco-innovation were interpreted and compared with development stage classifications. The results indicate that there are similar and different policy approaches to eco-innovation in Asian countries. Given the balance between a technology push (supply side) and a market pull (demand side) in policy instruments for eco-innovation, 17 countries were identified by four categories: leaders, followers, loungers, and laggards. The results provide insight for designing national strategies for eco-innovation in Asia’s developing countries. Therefore, this research contributes to facilitating and diffusing eco-innovation toward sustainability in Asia.

Following the trend on focusing on a nation’s economic-growth, side effects such as resource exhaustion, environmental pollution, and social injustice have begun to appear. As a solution, eco-innovation has received a great amount of attention from European countries and as a result, many efforts to analyze the development of eco-innovation quantitatively have been made. This study aims to evaluate the validity of an eco-innovation index developed to support the sustainable development goal. For this purpose, four factors of eco-innovation—capacity, supportive environment, activity, and performance—were applied to three categories of the Triple-Bottom-Line (TBL) concept in sustainability to compare the eco-innovation development level of 49 Asia-Europe Meeting countries. Factors for eco-innovation and TBL at the country level were organized in quartile and compared to see strength and weaknesses for each nation. In order to test if eco-innovation factors of a nation adequately reflect its sustainability, we used various comparisons of ANOVA. The results of this study are as follows: First, the one-way ANOVA tests present the scores for capacity, supportive environment, and performance as grouped into four quartiles in the same pattern as their economic, social, and environmental scores. The three-way ANOVA tests showed significance for the economic category. Scores for capacity, supportive environment, activity and performance were significant at a nation’s economic level. Lastly, the MANOVA test revealed that TBL significantly explains four eco-innovation factors. In addition, the eco-innovation performance level of European nations and Asian nations were compared. The possibility that many nations still have room to be competitive in their eco-innovation efforts was identified. Nations with unbalanced eco-innovation growth are urged to implement new strategies to balance their growth. Therefore, this research contributes to extending research on eco-innovation.

Agriculture accounts for the largest share of anthropogenic methane emissions. Rice paddy fields emit a significant amount of methane gas worldwide. Changing paddy water management practices has an enormous potential to reduce greenhouse gases. The clean development mechanism (CDM) project uses a market mechanism to reduce methane through private participation. There are various risks associated with private investment in CDM projects, although carbon credits as an economic incentive assist in mitigating some of these risks. Farmer participation plays a key role in the success of paddy water management projects in rural areas; however, despite the significant potential to reduce global methane emissions, very few projects have been implemented. When designing a Sustainable Development Mechanism (SDM) system, it is crucial to understand why the market mechanism in the existing CDM projects has failed. This study identifies and categorizes the risks and barriers to paddy water management in CDM projects and analyzes risk management options in CDM projects in India, Indonesia, and Mozambique. The results of this study showed that aside from economic risks, barriers to the application of technology in the field pose critical risks. The lack of knowledge and implementation experiences in rural areas increases barriers to practice. This in turn causes risk of difficulties in technology transfer which can be alleviated by improving awareness and introducing new knowledge through education and training in rural project implementation. Additionally, we highlight the importance of international efforts to build governance between the private and public sectors and promote technology transfers through multi-stakeholder engagement. This study provides specific information to encourage methane reduction worldwide and vitalize rice paddy water management in carbon reduction projects.

Many countries, including South Korea, decided to suspend the inclusion of harvested wood products in their Nationally Determined Contributions, as part of the carbon inventory, in 2016. The inclusion of harvested wood products in the national greenhouse gases inventory must ensure the accuracy of carbon accounting and its conformity with the policy direction. The method used for harvested wood product carbon accounting can influence the accuracy of carbon account value, as well as policy direction based on greenhouse gas accounting. This research evaluated the utilization of domestic wood resources in South Korea in terms of carbon storage impacts from the perspective of the cascading use of wood products. The study also compared the two accounting methods (Tier 2 and Tier 3) of carbon storage for the period from 1970 to 2080, assuming the current pattern of wood resource utilization for the next sixty years. The results show that the current utilization of domestic wood resources is inefficient in terms of climate change mitigation. The analysis shows that there is a significant difference between the Tier 2 and Tier 3 methods in carbon storage effects, and the amount of harvested wood products carbon stock calculated by the Tier 2 method was found to be approximately double that of Tier 3. This result implies that there is a possibility of overestimating the carbon storage of harvested wood products when using the Tier 2 method in the case of net timber-importing countries, such as South Korea. The study can provide guidance for designing timber resource management from the perspective of the cascading use of wood products in order to contribute to sustainable development goals, including climate change mitigation.

The author wishes to make the following correction to this paper [1].