The salinity of soil and water resources is one of the economically expensive challenges to achieve sustainable development across the world. Salinity, which is a major environmental issue for both arid and semi-arid regions, is highly stressful for vegetation and adds to other stresses including water scarcity, nutrient deficiencies and soil alkalinity. Remediation is a strategy to clean up pollutants from the plant root zone in order to reduce vegetation stress and enhance productivity This strategy involves biological management of soil and water which often leads to increased soil infiltration and leaching of excess salts out of the root zone. Several methods of soil and water remediation have been proposed that can be classified into the two main groups of engineering-based remediation and green remediation. Green remediation is the use of vegetation to remove or contain environmental contaminants such as heavy metals, trace elements, organic compounds and radioactive compounds in soil or water. There has recently been increased interest in green remediation using halophytes, particularly in developing countries. This paper reviews the different methods of phytoremediation and their application in green remediation. It also describes how halophytes are an emerging means of desalination and how they can be used for phytoremediation of heavy metals. (C) 2017 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.