Our creation story begins in an unlikely place: Vermillion, South Dakota…. I drove through South Dakota on a pilgrimage of sorts to pay my respects to Pastor Steve at Grace Baptist Church. This is the anchor church of the Siouxland Association of Southern Baptists … aka  SASB. The original SASB.

This year, great progress has been made in understanding the materiality of sustainability issues through robust quantitative analysis and the release of new, evidence-based standards. It is now generally accepted that sustainability needs to be analyzed through an industry lens in order to make sense of it, a concept that was still nascent in 2011 when I founded the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). As a result, the move to embrace sustainable investing by investors of all types continues to accelerate.

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum in Davos this year. A letter penned by a hedge fund manager, Seth Klarman, generated buzz amongst attendees. Mr. Klarman runs the Baupost Group, an asset management firm famous for both its value investing style as well as the many happy returns that have accrued to clients. Mr. Klarman is apparently concerned about systemic issues such as inequality that could contribute to the instability of capital markets and even tarnish the reputation of those on Wall Street. He’s concerned enough, it seems, to write about it in his year-end letter to clients.

Since founding SASB in 2011, it has at times seemed uncertain if the standards would ever be ready for use in the market, to put it mildly.  Success was not preordained, and the pathway leading to standards for 79 industries was not straightforward.

Happy Chinese New Year! 2018 is the Year of the Dog, a year near and dear to my heart. SASB standards will be “born” in 2018, and so were both my husband and daughter. Dogs share many wonderful characteristics: they are analytical, trustworthy, hard workers, and… popular!

New years and new beginnings always seem to go hand in hand. However, for me and my colleagues on the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), this one feels unique—a little like waking up and jumping out of bed on the morning of a big marathon. There’s energy. Excitement. Even a little anxiety. That’s because 2018 marks a pivotal year for the SASB as we codify our provisional standards and begin a three-year cycle of standards maintenance.

That’s what occurred to me this week, when I was informed I had been named one of Accounting Today’s Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting. Naturally, I am grateful for and humbled by this honor, but I also recognize that my work to promote sustainability accounting relies on the efforts of so many others.

As of July 25, the SEC had received 26,391 comment letters. Of these responses, 16,302 were form letters asking the SEC to require U.S. corporations to disclose more details on foreign subsidiaries, and taxes they owe in the US. 9,862 were form letters calling for SEC to require companies to disclose “sustainability plans”, tax payments by country and political spending. Of the 227 original letters, 66% discussed sustainability disclosures. This is pretty remarkable, considering that only 3.2% of the Concept Release (11 of 341 pages) discussed sustainability disclosure.