NEW DELHI: Swedish multinational and world’s leading home furnishing retailer IKEA isn’t just looking at India as a market for its products. The Swedish major, which is looking to kick off its India retail operations with as many as four stores, became the first multinational to put down money to reduce carbon pollution. Over the next five years, IKEA will spend a total of €1 billion to cut down carbon pollution and slow down the rate of global warming by investing in renewable — wind turbines and solar — energy That IKEA is yet to finalise the locations of its stores in India — it is in various stages of finalising locations in Telengana, Haryana, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, and an announcement is expected in the next one month or so — isn’t preventing it from deepening its sustainability partnership with India.Speaking to ET, Steve Howard, Chief Sustainability Officer, IKEA Group, said: “When we do open up our stores in India we will set up renewable energy sources for our stores, including solar panels on the roof tops and car parks. But in the meantime, we are working in partnership with our suppliers, sometimes even cofinancing efforts to reduce our carbon footprint , improve energy efficiencies.”The Swedish major’s partnership with India is not a new one. It has been sourcing from India for nearly three decades. It is presently working with nearly 50 suppliers. IKEA’s India office works with these suppliers, monitoring their competence levels concerning quality, compliance, sustainability especially the use of water , energy and chemicals.When it comes to energy intensive practices and the amount of carbon pollution being generated, the performance of the Indian suppliers has been a mixed one. But the story is definitely not a bleak one, and IKEA says that it will be ramping up their efforts. “Our textile supplier, Asian Fabrics, has a fantastic performance record. They have successfully decoupled from grid, which is dominated by coalfired power by moving to solar and wind sources. Asian Fabrics installed a 1.5-MW photovoltaic array and four wind turbines generating 20 MW of energy and in doing so achieved 100% energy independence,” Howard said.At another supplier, the company is saving over 285 MW of energy and 69 million litres of water. IKEA’s sustainability boss said that there were similar efforts being made by other suppliers, but there was plenty of work still left to do. Howard said that if the existing initiatives are replicated by other South Asian suppliers then there is a potential to save more than €241 million ($300 million) in energy, water, and resources cost over the next five years. As part of the company’s Supplier Goes Renewable Initiative, energy audits at four suppliers in India have identified potential savings of 11,199 MW, which translates into reduction of 4,813 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.The €1 billion that IKEA will spend globally on climate action has been clearly earmarked — €500 million on wind energy, €100 million on solar panels, and €400 million through the IKEA Foundation to help vulnerable communities which are already dealing with the adverse impacts of climate change.The IKEA Foundation, the company’s charitable arm, already works with communities in India, particularly in the cotton growing belt. Of the 120,000 cotton farmers it works with globally, a large section comprises Indian cotton farmers. The foundation’s work in India has been focused on ensuring that children of cotton farmers are in schools and not working and in empowering women with job skills.While the foundation plans to increase its ambit of operations in India, there are no specifics yet. “We will take some time to get a better sense of what communities need and then take a considered view. We will focus on recovering from and preventing disasters, and on building the resilience of communities through proactive strategies, Jonathan Spampinato, head of Communications and Strategic Planning, IKEA Foundation, told ET.