Solvents play a critical role in "greening" synthetic chemistry, and this is also true in catalytic organic synthesis. This review attempts to summarize the progress made in the past a few years on homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic reactions in the non-conventional solvents, water, ionic liquids, supercritical carbon dioxide and fluorous carbons, with the focus on those catalyzed by transition metal complexes. The reactions covered include hydrogenation, hydroformylation, carbonylation, Heck reactions, Suzuki and Stille couplings, Sonogashira reactions, allylic substitution, olefin metathesis, olefin epoxidation and alcohol oxidation. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.