Abstract
Scholars and policy makers have long recognised the significant role of regulatory agencies in accelerating sustainable innovations (SIs). Yet, advocating for regulatory activities to directly influence the commercial transition of SIs has remained an unsettled debate; a conundrum that is weaved with intricately reasoned concerns about challenges in defining regulatory framework for a nascent field and the tendency of regulators to pick winners (or losers) for the market economy. In this paper we argue that this concern may be addressed through framing anew the mechanism for regulatory interventions and conceiving the role of regulators as contributing a web stakeholder activities and relationships geared towards fostering SIs . Specifically, we draw on the functional principles of a catalyst in a chemical reaction to establish a robust bases for regulatory actions to have a direct effect commercial transition of SIs, and present a conceptual framework of catalytic regulation and sustainable innovation to offer core insights from which both academic discourse and policy making on regulation and innovation can benefit.