Since our founding over 40 years ago, sustainability has been a core tenet at Vermilion. Our team strives to be eco-conscious both in their personal lives and in their 9-to-5, helping make us as green a business as possible (and, of course, a Certified B Corporation).
While we do what we can as a business, our real superpower in sustainability and conservation lies in our partnerships. We prioritize and proudly support clients that focus on protecting our planet, whether through safeguarding wildlife, reconnecting our waterways, pioneering clean energy alternatives, or helping communities increase their climate resilience.
We’re also part of a larger, yet regional, movement. The Colorado Green Business Network (CGBN) is a statewide program that brings together Colorado businesses of all sizes and sectors that commit to sustainability best practices and continuous improvement. It offers free technical assistance, mentoring, and recognition to help companies reduce waste, energy use, and pollution.
And we’re proud to join the network as a Silver Member of the Colorado Green Business Network!
Colorado Green Business Network’s impact is already tangible. Between 2022 and 2025, the network helped more than 900 participating businesses:
- Reduce electricity use by 103 million kWh
- Divert 1.3 million tons of waste from landfills
- Save nearly 1 billion gallons of water
A natural next step for a Certified B Corporation
Becoming a certified B Corp didn’t just give us a badge, it gave us a foundation. The path to certification pushes us to measure and improve everything from governance and worker benefits to community impact and environmental performance.
In many ways, our B Corp status sets the standard for how we operate as a green business. Being a B Corp codifies practices we’ve been building for decades, like prioritizing mission‑aligned clients, centering equity, and tracking our environmental footprint, and challenged ourselves to go further.
Joining the Colorado Green Business Network is a natural extension of that commitment. It’s another way to hold ourselves accountable, learn from our peers, and keep nudging our operations toward lower waste, lower emissions, and greater impact.
Joining the network helps us stay connected and committed, because it’s never just one decision or certification that determines your impact on the environment. It’s many choices, big and small, like rethinking how we commute and making our remote work as sustainable as we can. And committing to multi-year efforts like Colorado Green Business Network and B Corp. It’s partnering with organizations and people that are dedicated to saving our world, year after year…after year.
Impact-driven creative work for climate and sustainability
As a creative agency, our strongest leverage is the work we do with and for our partners. We focus our sustainability efforts in two key areas:
1) Frontlines of conservation, climate resilience, and community support.
We’re intentional about collaborating with people and organizations on the frontlines of sustainability and environmental movements.
Together, we’ve tackled complete rebrands, website overhauls, marketing campaigns, and Google Ad Grant strategies, all to help them recruit more supporters, unlock more funding, and grow their circle of positive influence. It’s a privilege to contribute to the ongoing success of our planet’s pivotal guardians. Just look at what we’ve built with Protect Our Winters, Wildfire Partners, and East Coast Greenway Alliance – we’re lucky to call these teams our partners (and friends).
2) Direct impact on climate action and environmental advocacy.
Over the last four decades, our environmental partners have been diverse. These go-getters span political organizations lobbying for wildlife protections, nonprofits restoring rivers, energy companies innovating clearer solutions, and county programs pushing collective climate action, among many others. We know our own operational choices matter, and we work hard to reduce our footprint.
But we also know that when our partners succeed, the ripple effect is much bigger: Colorado (and beyond) becomes more resilient, equitable, and connected.
Creative writing and powerful design are critical to making a lasting impression on communities. Last year, Denver’s “Do more. Do less. Do something.” campaign from the Denver Climate Project turned climate anxiety into a call-to-action by inviting residents to think of climate action as a community effort. We see our work in a similar light, helping mission-driven organizations turn climate stories and scientific data into messages that move people to, well, do something.
Part of a Colorado climate resilience effort
The realities of climate change are landing close to home. Recent research conducted by the Colorado School of Mines shows that the historic snow drought in the Upper Colorado River Basin was made 14x more likely due to long-term climate change, with warmer temperatures robbing the region of the equivalent of an entire Lake Mead’s worth of water.
That’s not an abstract statistic. It’s a reminder that what we do (or don’t do) today shapes the future of our rivers, farms, and communities decades down the line.
That puts Colorado in the middle of a pivotal climate moment. The state is making strides, though. Leaders have committed to cutting greenhouse gas pollution 50% by 2030 (compared to 2005 levels), and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, guided by its Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Roadmap 2.0.
Locally, Denver is translating these statewide goals into local action through its Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency and its Climate Protection Fund, investing more than $40 million each year in programs like building electrification incentives, home energy upgrades, and e‑bike rebates that prioritize communities most impacted by pollution.
Programs like the Colorado Green Business Network sit right in the middle of this picture. By helping businesses increase energy efficiency, conserve water, and reduce waste, the program contributes to state and regional progress by turning big climate goals into everyday practice, and shows that sustainability can be good for both the planet and the bottom line.
More Colorado Green Business Network members = more impact
Every new Green Business adds up. When more Colorado companies sign onto programs and commit to cleaner operations, we benefit:
- Less energy and water use across the state
- Fewer greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, fleets, and supply chains
- Stronger demand for green products, services, and infrastructure
- A shared language and set of standards for what “good” looks like in business sustainability
In other words, the more we show up together, the faster we can move from one-off efforts to a truly sustainable regional economy.
An invitation to our fellow Colorado businesses
If you’re part of a Colorado business, whether you’re a local retail shop, growing tech startup, or long-standing institution, we’d love to see you in the Colorado Green Business Network alongside us. The program meets you where you are, helps to identify practical improvements, and gives you recognition for the steps you’re already taking.
We’re committed to this statewide effort and excited to keep learning, experimenting, and partnering with others who are all-in on a more sustainable Colorado.
