Abstract: The 6th International Conference on Environmental Catalysis (6th ICEC) was held in Beijing from September 12 to September 15, 2010. The ICEC is a series of conferences that was initiated in Pisa (1995) and followed up in Miami Beach (1998), Tokyo (2001), Heidelberg (2005) and Belfast (2008). Totally 398 participants from 26 countries and regions attended the 6th ICEC 2010. Six plenary lectures were presented by Prof. Robbie Burch (The University of Belfast, UK), Dr. Hirofumi Shinjoh (Toyota Central R&D Labs, Japan), Prof. Chunshan Song (The Pennsylvania State University, USA), Prof. Michikazu Hara (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan), Prof. Gabriele Centi (University Messina Italy) and Prof. Jincai Zhao (Institute of Chemistry, China), and 133 oral presentations (including 16 keynote lectures) were presented during the conference. In the two poster-discussion sessions, 219 posters were displayed and well discussed. The scope of these presentations included the recent trends and challenges in automotive exhaust catalysis, catalysis for clean water and indoor air, catalysis for sustainable and clean energy, catalysis for reducing greenhouse gases, catalytic processes in green chemistry, and so on. Environmental catalysis, as an important approach to environmental protection and green chemistry, has been emerging as one of the rapidly growing areas in catalysis, and has made significant progress in recent years. The main objective of the 6th ICEC was to promote the global and interdisciplinary approach towards both fundamental science and industrial applications in environmental catalysis. This conference followed the tradition of the conference series and reflected tremendous advances in the field of environmental catalysis during the last few years. The conference provided a forum for scientists and engineers from both academia and industry to discuss the most recent developments and technological opportunities in this vibrant area of research. This special issue of Chinese Journal of Catalysis compiled 24 papers which were selected from the presentations in the 6th ICEC. These manuscripts were accepted after a peer-review procedure as those accepted usually for publications in Chinese Journal of Catalysis. These papers reflected the most recent advances and progresses in fundamental and applied aspects of environmental catalysis research. Finally, the Guest Editors, C. Li and H. He, would like to sincerely thank the colleagues, all authors and referees who have contributed a lot to this special issue. The acknowledgements are also extended to the editors of Chinese Journal of Catalysis for their valuable advice and assistance in preparing this issue.