Brian Setzler is a staunch advocate of triple-bottom-line (TBL) business practices. He’s also a realistic CPA in Portland, Ore. who knows we’re years away from internationally recognized and adopted rules for TBL accounting.

Brian and I have been each other’s client: I helped him define the brand of his new firm TriLibrium and his firm did my taxes. I figured he’d be the perfect person to give me a read on where TBL stands in the accounting profession. Not surprisingly, there’s much work to be done, starting with general awareness.

“Half or more of accountants today don’t even know what ‘triple bottom line’ means,” Brian says. Having recently completed an MBA in sustainability, Brian sees business schools increasingly doing their parts to introduce and teach the concept. But a good understanding of TBL principles among professional accountants is uncommon. Even more rare are accountants such as Brian who make TBL practices the cornerstone of their business.

Brian believes it could be 15-20 years or more before governing bodies in accounting expand rules to include environmental and social performance reporting, in addition to financial. He points to the years it took the U.S. Financial Accounting Services Board (FASB) and SEC to agree on moving from Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The official move to IFRS in the U.S. is still five years off. The point being, the wheels of accounting governance move slowly. Getting to a TBL version of IFRS is years down the road.

Taking matters into your own hands

That doesn’t mean individual businesses shouldn’t take matters into their own hands when it comes to accounting for their environmental footprint and social impact. There are plenty of sustainability consultants and tools that can help.

Brian and his firm aren’t waiting for the world to converge on international TBL standards. “We hold a very high bar for ourselves.” Despite being a small business, TriLibrium is making a significant investment in producing a sustainability report based on the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. “It’s one of the things that separates the real deal from the wannabes in sustainability,” he says.

For Brian, adopting the triple bottom line is akin to the move to PC-based business systems 25 years ago. “It’s just the way business is going. It’s the future of business.” And as more companies such as Wal-Mart push their sustainability standards down into their supply chain, it will no longer be enough to say you’re green. “In the future it will be, ‘Prove it. Show me, don’t just tell me.’ If you’re not doing this today, you’re missing the boat.”