Green chemistry is a chemical philosophy that encourages chemical processes to move towards pollution prevention, cleaner production and sustainable development, and the philosophy of green chemistry tends to focus on industrial application. In this review article, we review in chronological order some successful government polices in different periods of time over the past 30 years, i.e., waste minimization, pollution prevention, cleaner production, design for the environment, and finally sustainable development. Typical events, such as the promulgation of the Pollution Prevention Act in 1990 by the USA, and the operation of The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards Program in the USA since 1995. Through 2007, a total of 62 technologies have been recognized by the awards with over 1000 nominations. Several outstanding processes derived from innovative green chemistry are introduced.