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It’s a challenging time for Europe. People, businesses, and governments across the continent are concerned about rising prices and increased pressure on the energy grid because of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The concern people are feeling is evident in the information they’re searching for. The search term “climate anxiety” reached an all-time high in July 2022, and top trending searches, such as “save natural gas,” “saving heating costs,” and “save energy,” show us that people want — and need — answers.

For more than 20 years, Google has been investing in making our operations and communities more sustainable. Building on the lessons and achievements from our first two decades of progress, in 2020 we launched our third decade of climate action — our most ambitious yet. We know that our responsibility begins with our own footprint, so our latest goal is to reach net zero across all our operations and value chain by 2030.

But no company, no matter how ambitious, can solve a challenge as big as climate change alone. One of the most powerful things we can do is build technology that allows us, our partners, and individuals around the world to take meaningful action.

It was with that sentiment in mind that we organized today’s inaugural Google Sustainability Summit in Brussels, as a space for partners working across the climate space to forge new partnerships and deepen collaboration, share ideas and inspiration and jointly move from climate pledges to progress.

Sustainability has always been a core value for us. As CEO of Google & Alphabet Sundar Pichai put it at today’s conference, “There is no time to waste. The crisis is impacting communities around the world, including those already facing deep challenges. At Google we share the EU’s commitment to action and want to be a helpful partner in that progress.”

For those who were unable to attend the conference, we thought we would share some of our key takeaways.

Digital solutions are instrumental for climate action

Research supported by Google and conducted by Implement Consulting has identified the sectors where digital technologies can make the biggest impact on facilitating energy and emissions savings. The results, released today, make us hopeful.

Digital solutions play an important enabling role for at least 20-25% of the reductions required to achieve a net-zero economy in Europe — equivalent to the total emissions of France and Germany combined.

The research also identifies four sectors that play a critical role in moving us from pledges to progress:

• Transport, where digital tech plays a key enabling role in 60-70% of the needed CO₂ reductions and helps to save energy
• Buildings, with tech enabling 30-35% of the needed CO₂ reductions, for example by saving energy and supporting the shift away from gas
• Agriculture, where digital tech is in its early phase, but can play an enabling role in 20-25% of the needed CO₂ reductions
• Factories and supply chains, where tech enables 10-15% of the needed CO₂ reductions

Building on an existing body of research, these insights suggest that emissions savings enabled by tech significantly outweigh tech’s own emissions. For example, just two applications — videoconferencing and artificial intelligence solutions for building management — are already saving emissions comparable to those associated with all European data centers, while using a fraction of the computing capacity. That said, there is still the potential and need to decarbonize, and we as a digital sector continue to work on this.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries said during the conference, “In the EU Green Deal, digital technologies and artificial intelligence play a major role. They help us measure the effectiveness of our legislation, monitor pollution and climate change, and model solutions. They are key enablers in the green transformation.”

Key piece of the decarbonization puzzle: 24/7 carbon-free energy

Another research study released today by the Technical University of Berlin, supported by Google, compares the impact of different clean electricity strategies in Europe. Traditionally, companies purchase renewable energy to match their annual electricity needs, known as “100% renewable energy matching.” This has limited benefits for decarbonization.

Compared to this, Google’s first-of-its-kind approach of hourly matching of carbon-free energy, known as 24/7 carbon-free energy (CFE), reduces significantly more carbon emissions — not only for the companies concerned, but the entire electricity system. This also spurs technology innovation for decarbonization.

Most essential of all: collaboration

Our work has taught us that many of the sustainability solutions that the world needs already exist. They’ve been researched, tested and piloted. It’s the collaboration — between policymakers, climate experts, technology providers, business and individuals — that is needed to put them to use.

As Sebastian Copeland, award-winning photographer, adventurer and environmental advocate, told the conference, “We do not have the luxury of time. Technology is well on the way to offer a path to sustainability. But we need the public and private sectors, and public opinion for systemic and lasting change — and each can only move as fast as the slowest one.”

We know people are looking for answers. They expect us to be responsible partners. They expect us to come together to find solutions and act. Together, we can — and must — move from pledges to progress. The time is now.

Successful businesses are leaning into existing customer relationships and the information they agree to share in order to enable improved experiences. This information, known as first-party data, can be the basis for privacy-preserving, future-proof ways to connect with customers. That’s why we’re creating a new way for advertisers to power their advertising using first-party data in Display & Video 360.

Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation, or PAIR, is a new solution that gives publishers and advertisers the option to securely and privately reconcile their first-party data for audiences who have visited both an advertiser’s and a publisher’s site. Advertisers and publishers will be able to activate encrypted first-party information that is unique to their sites via aggregation. This process ensures no user-level data is ever shared between parties and the aggregated data is only readable and meaningful in the limited context of their direct relationship.

PAIR gives advertisers the ability to more closely connect with their known audiences, while avoiding tracking individuals across the web. As a result, advertisers can show relevant ads to some of their highest-intent audiences, helping to increase advertising performance and hit marketing objectives, while respecting people’s privacy expectations.

Connect with your most engaged customers with personalized ads

Consumers prefer relevant ads, but they don’t want them to come at the cost of their privacy. With PAIR, advertisers will be able to run relevant ads to their first-party audiences — like past purchasers and people on their loyalty lists — without relying on third-party cookies. PAIR can be used to engage with existing customers or cart-abandoners, and prevent consumers from seeing ads for a product they already purchased.

For example, imagine you’re a shoe retailer and a group of people have signed up to your store’s mailing list. Separately, these same people on your list have also shared their email addresses with a publisher when browsing content online. With PAIR, you will be able to reach these people with relevant ads on that publisher’s website, because they have an existing relationship with you and with the publisher.

We’ve heard positive feedback from advertisers and agencies alike. Like Annalect, many of them are looking forward to testing PAIR.

“It’s important for us to find new ways to help advertisers connect with their audiences without replicating third-party cookies’ pitfalls. PAIR will allow us to create more personalized ad campaigns for advertisers by harnessing their first-party data in a way that is secure and protects users’ trust in their brand. We’re excited to begin using PAIR and to continue engaging with customers in meaningful ways.”
— Adam Gitlin, President, Annalect

PAIR is designed for execution across all transaction types, and publishers will have the option to use their supply side platform of choice. Publishers like Grupo Prisa have already started using PAIR, saying:

“PAIR will be part of our cookieless strategy enabling us to deliver more relevant ads to our logged-in users and improve the performance of our advertising partners.”
— Manuel Castro, Transformation and Client Solutions Director, PRISA Media

Reconcile first-party data in a secure and privacy-preserving way

Seventy-six percent of advertisers and agencies find the usage of IDs based on pooled data concerning from a regulatory standpoint.[74bad1]That’s why PAIR is different: it doesn’t require pooling of audience data. Instead, each advertiser and publisher will maintain ownership and control of its data.

PAIR will protect trust in your brand because it doesn’t allow for tracking people across the web, which we don’t believe meets user’s privacy expectations. Instead, users will only be shown ads from the advertisers and publishers with whom they have direct relationships, giving them more control of the ads they see.

PAIR also protects advertisers and publishers from data leaks by encrypting their first-party data three times with three different keys: an advertiser key, a publisher key and a key shared between the two parties. These keys are unique for every advertiser-publisher relationship and ensure there is no way for any one party to reverse-encrypt or identify users. After encryption and reconciliation, the advertiser and the publisher both receive the percentage match rate of their respective first-party audience lists, but no user-level matches or Personally Identifiable Information (PII) will be sent back. Similarly, no PII will be shared with either the supply side platform or with Display & Video 360.

Pick the partners that work for you

To connect the data, advertisers and publishers can use clean rooms. Clean rooms ensure any data shared by advertisers and publishers stays secure, and only their encrypted data gets shared with Display & Video 360 for reconciliation. Additionally, clean rooms help manage the data upload and encryption process, so advertisers and publishers don’t have to manage these on their own. This gives advertisers and publishers additional privacy technical guarantees and reduces the amount of data access needed by Display & Video 360.

We have already begun partnering with three clean-room providers, Habu, InfoSum and LiveRamp, with plans to integrate with Ads Data Hub (ADH). As we work to onboard more clean rooms, partners will have more choices.

“LiveRamp is excited to implement PAIR in Safe Haven and bring it to our 450+ marketers and 11,000+ publisher domains. Both marketers and publishers recognize there’s no silver bullet for the end of the cookie, and are seeking privacy-first solutions that enhance the customer experience.”
— Scott Howe, CEO, LiveRamp

Building upon a first-party approach

If you’re a brand or publisher with first-party data, reach out to your Display & Video 360 team to learn more about how to start using PAIR.

PAIR is one of many ways we’re helping businesses run relevant ads in Display & Video 360 while respecting people’s privacy. We’re reimagining programmatic audience solutions using a multi-signal approach harnessing first-party data, machine learning and privacy-preserving APIs. This will give you the choice and resilience you need to build trust with your customers and meet their expectations for more personalized ad experiences.