Sustainability

We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint as much as possible. By transitioning to a hybrid office, work-from-home environment and utilizing cloud services, we’ve already made big strides. 

• Over the past year and a half, 90% of our employees have been working from home, helping significantly reduce our carbon footprint. In addition to work from home options, we coach our team around ways to reduce power usage while out of the office. 
• We’ve partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to evaluate our power use effectiveness and are proud that our AWS Power Use Effectiveness is 1.2, translating to an 83% efficiency. We are committed to using providers with a goal to achieve 100% renewable energy usage for their global infrastructure.
• We’ve implemented sustainable practices at our facilities such as reusable water dispensaries, and auto-shut-off lighting. Recycling is strongly encouraged throughout the office and we participate in other waste management programs. 
• We are exploring options to broaden our sustainable sourcing program and are committed to partnering with vendors that share our commitment to sustainable practices.
• Our office spaces are LEED certified.
  

Giving back to our communities is core to who we are and has been a source of pride for over 40 years! Our employees enjoy having opportunities at work where they can volunteer and get involved. 

Whether it’s working with our corporate partners, supporting disaster relief efforts, utilizing the employee matching program or participating in the Global Week of Service, there are a wide variety of ways to get involved and give back at Vertex!  Over the last two years alone we have supported over 50 non-profits and invested approximately $1.5M into communities around the world. 

We believe in a culture where all employees feel included and diversity of our people, thoughts, and opinions is valued and embraced. 

Truly listening to our team members and create purposeful opportunities for them to feel heard is a key area of focus. Along with that, holding ourselves accountable for making this a place where all our employees can thrive as their authentic selves is a key priority for us. 

Our focus on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEI&B) is about more than just our passion to cultivate our culture of respect for all people, it is critical to our success as a company.  DEI&B has data-driven links to business performance and success and is embedded in our mission, values and enterprise objectives. 

One example of the collaboration with employees is the creation of Business Resource Groups (BRGs) Inspired by employee feedback, these are employee-led teams of individuals working together around a common bonding factor. BRGs help underrepresented communities create inclusive environments where they can thrive in the workplace. They also drive cross-functional, lateral connections across our global employee base. Our BRGs are global, open to everyone, and employee-led with executive sponsorship.

• Black Professionals Network (BPN):  Provides a safe and authentic space for Black employees and allies to focus on the advancement and equity of Black employees within the organization.
   
• Prism:  Advocates for those with diverse genders and sexualities to promote inclusion, equality, equity, and respect. 
   
• Vertex Village:  Provides working parents, guardians and caregivers a group to find support and promote a healthy work-life balance while raising mini and not-so-mini humans and caring for loved ones.
   
• Women in Search of Excellence (WISE):  Cultivates an inclusive environment that supports and encourages women to elevate their voices and develop skills through connection, mentorship, collaboration, and education.
   
• THRIVE:  Connects, fosters, and empowers a community of employees by raising awareness about mental, physical, and emotional health.
   
• GenNow: Provides young professionals with the inspiration and skills to build their future at Vertex. 

This program is available to all employees - it explores the circle of trust and represents what we consider to be safe in our lives - on a personal level, in our families, in our hometown, and even at Vertex. In order to better understand our opportunity to act more inclusively, we must all understand what exists in and outside of the circle - and why it is so important to invite those different than us to be a part of our circle.

Customers use our solutions within all their critical infrastructure both internally and at the edge and they want to ensure we have the tools, technologies, processes, and controls in place to protect their data. Where appropriate, we provide our customers with independent third-party audit reports such as Service Organization Control (SOC) 1 and SOC 2, as well as certifications to ISO 27001.

Our top priority is keeping their data secure. We employ rigorous security measures at the organizational, architectural, and operational levels to ensure that their data, applications, and infrastructure remain safe. 

Additionally, our customers’ privacy is crucial. We provide them with a promise that sets forth our responsibilities and obligations as a data processor. In addition, we strongly support regulations that protect the cross-border transfer of personal data. 

Privacy protections are important to our customers as well as the individuals within their organizations and we help customers meet their own GDPR compliance requirements. 

To meet the needs of our ever-growing employee base and evolving culture, we responded quickly to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our full team was empowered to move to fully remote work and were provided the time and resources to juggle family and work. We also provided Wellness resources for employee mental wellbeing including live seminars with wellness professionals. Additionally, the Personal Leave policy was expanded so people could get the care they may need.
As a customer-first driven organization with a core focus on the well-being of our team, we nurture our culture by providing benefits to our team that helps them be happy and effective including:

• Parental Leave
• Long Term Equity Incentives 
• Market-based compensation 
• 401(k) plan with a company match
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Health Savings Account (HSA) 

Our key value is respect - for people as well as ethics and fair governance. To ensure our customers and partners feel they can trust us, our board of directors oversees material business matters such as strategy, risk, and ethical behavior.

Our board currently consists of eight members, five of which are independent as defined by the NASDAQ. Our Audit Committee and Human Capital Committee are independent and the Nominating and Governance Committee is majority independent.

Our Board believes that the current composition provides effective oversight of the company on behalf of all Vertex shareholders.

Environmental, Social, and Governance Issues are overseen by the Nominating and Governance Committee and risk issues by the Audit Committee.