This seems to work, but I'd love input as wo whether or not it's the right way to do it.
strftime('%G', strtotime(date_i18n('Y-m-d')))
Simply using date_i18n('Y') was working up until today, when it returned 2014 as opposed to 2015. And apparently we are in week 1 of 2015 according to UNIX? php?
Thanks and Happy New Year.