A "citrate route"-derived procedure to directly synthesize perovskite catalysts on a cordierite monolith has been developed as a simple, sustainable, fast and reproducible alternative to washcoating. The procedure has been validated with LaCoO3, a well-established perovskite active for oxidation reactions. The activity of LaCoO3 directly synthesized on monolith towards CO and C3s oxidation has been compared both with LaCoO3 powders and LaCoO3/monolithsystems obtained by traditional, optimized washcoating procedure. It has been proved that the direct synthesis of the perovskite on the cordierite monolith results in a very uniform, stable catalyst coating, with the same specific activity of powders. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.