## 6 Discussion and Conclusions
Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Singapore contribute to promoting eco-innovation in other Asian countries. Japan made efforts to create a sustainable material cycle through the 3 Rs in Asia. The green growth national strategy of the Republic of Korea [77] can be a model for designing national strategies for green growth in other Asian countries. As the national plans reflect policy priority of energy conservation and renewable energy generation, most of the selected countries established regulations in the energy sector. In particular, Japan and the Republic of Korea introduced more regulations in the energy sector than other Asian countries. Energy-sector based environmental policy stringency in OECD countries was measured with the number of market-based and non-market regulations in 2012 [78]. Japan's and Korea's scores of environmental policy stringency are close to the average of other OECD countries. Given the interactions among the determinants of eco-innovation (Figure 1), policy instruments for eco-innovation have two approaches: technology push (supply-side instruments) and market pull (demand-side instruments). The technology push concept assumes a supply-side-driven and mainly linear process from research to development and ultimately to diffusion [79]. The supply-side instruments include investment in innovation activities such as research and development (R&D) support. The market pull concept postulates anticipated market demand as a key determinant of innovation [79]. The demand-side instruments include incentives to create markets for innovative products [2]. The selected Asian countries adopted both approaches. 11 countries in development stages 1 to 3 established R&D programs and financing mechanisms for developing clean technologies as a supply-side instrument. Singapore, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and China established specific funds for R&D on pushing clean technology. As demand-side instruments, these countries introduced grants and subsidies to create markets for innovative products. FIT schemes and green public procurement (GPP) programs were established and implemented in many of the selected countries. Ten countries in development stages 1 to 3 adopted a FIT scheme for renewable energy. Several countries in development stages 1 to 3 (Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, China, India, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia) are members of an International Green Purchasing Network, which was founded in 2005 [80]. They introduced GPP to enhance producing green products to increase green growth. GPP is one of several practices that is linked to ecological modernization [64]. It indicates government institutional support in the second scope of ecological modernization [38]. Given the balance between the technology push (supply side) and the market pull (demand side) in policy instruments for eco-innovation, the selected Asian countries can be mapped as shown in Figure 3. The three levels of supply-side and demand-side instruments are based on this study's results that were reported in Section 5. We did not consider the size and scale of the policy instruments but the number of policy instruments. The levels are classified by the number of economic instruments in Table 6 into low, medium, and high. The levels of policy instruments indicate relative positions among the selected countries for establishing and implementing eco-innovation policies. In the progress of eco-innovation, 17 countries can be related to all four categories: leaders, followers, loungers, and laggards [81]. Singapore, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and China are leaders in Asian eco-innovation. They introduced technology push (supply side) and market pull (demand side) instruments in balance. They have the financial capacity to facilitate technological progress and market development. They are regarded as pioneers of ecological modernization in Asia [39, 41, 82]. Japan, with its high level of technical and financial resources, is a front-runner in Asian eco-innovation.