Swedish furniture giant, Ikea, is planning to invest £3.4 billion into solar and wind farms and to make its first investments in energy storage. By doing this, it will hasten its plans to invest in clean energy before 2030, to directly build its own renewable energy plants, and to fit its retail store network with charging points for electric cars.

The majority owner of Ikea's stores, Ingka Group, has already spent more than £2.5 billion over the past ten years, to install nearly a million solar panels across its physical premises. It has also previously invested in ten solar parks and nearly 550 wind turbines to ensure that it can produce sufficient clean energy to power its business.

This latest round of investment will mean that IKEA is making better use of its clean energy generation - by investing in cutting-edge storage technologies - and promoting the use of clean electric cars, along with the use of hydrogen fuels that can help to slash the emissions from IKEA delivery vans.

CEO of Ingka Group, Jespa Brodin, said that the company's coming decade of clean energy investment and ambition was designed to coincide with a key period in combatting climate change across the world.

He said that this decade was the most important in mankind's history, with climate change no longer a vague threat, and everyone now bound to do their part to bring global warming down to 1.5C. He added that the costs of taking no action were simply too high and would risk Ikea as a business, and humanity overall.

He added that good business meant doing the right thing. Ikea has long been an early adopter of clean energy strategies amongst other large multinationals, committing to operate on an entirely carbon-neutral basis by 2030.