About Valerie Gardner

Ms. Gardner is a principal and co-founder of Tiemann Investment Advisors, LLC. A former tech CFO and General Council, Ms. Gardner has identified climate change as a major risk for long term investors. Since 2005, she has devoted her energy towards understanding the risks and solutions and, since 2011, has worked to develop methodologies for managing and reducing the carbon risks in client portfolios. In 2014, Ms. Gardner announced TIA's "Future Generation" portfolio strategy, through which public market investors could avoid carbon risk while maintaining proper sector balance. In 2021, Ms. Gardner launched Nucleation Capital, a separate venture fund to enable climate-focused investors to invest in private ventures developing scalable climate solutions primarily focused on advanced nuclear and deep decarbonization innovation.

CEOs and Asset Managers Worried about Climate

By |2018-12-20T20:34:19-08:00June 3rd, 2015|Business News, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Divestment from Fossil Fuels, Euro, Fossil Fuel Free investing, Group of Seven, Preventing Pollution, Shareholder Rights|

Is it time to think about how climate change might impact your portfolio?  Apparently, some 120 CEOs and investment managers representing more than $12 trillion in assets think so. They were worried enough to send an open letter on May 25, 2015 to the Group of Seven (G-7) Finance Ministers to urge them to commit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions [...]

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An end to “male, pale and stale?”

By |2018-12-20T20:38:31-08:00January 29th, 2015|Business News, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Corporate Actions, Energy, Environmental Reporting, Fiduciary Duty Standards, Financial Health, Financial Institutions, Fossil Fuel Free investing, Future Generations, Shareholder Rights|

Despite the well-pronouced and increasingly strident warnings from scientists about the deleterious effects of burning fossil fuels on the environment, there is a surprising amount of "business as usual" going on in corporate America. This makes the news about the way Anne Stausboll, the chief executive of Calpers, addresses climate change all the more impressive. According to an article in [...]

The price of oil is falling and frackers are hurting

By |2018-12-20T20:39:27-08:00January 7th, 2015|Business News, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Divestment from Fossil Fuels, Economic Indicators, Preventing Pollution|

The price of oil has fallen by more than 50% since June, 2014 when it was hovering around $110 a barrel. It is now below $50. This comes after nearly five years of relatively steady price growth and supply stability. However, at the November 27th meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which controls nearly 40% of the world [...]

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$1 Trillion of Zombie Investments Stranded in the Oil Fields

By |2018-12-20T20:39:53-08:00December 27th, 2014|Analysts, Business News, Commodities, Energy, Environmental Reporting, Financial Institutions|

In mid-December, Goldman Sachs released a report with news that they had calculated the impacts from the large drop in the price of oil, which at that time had dropped 49 percent in less than six months: a stunning $1 trillion in at risk future oil projects. The projects — oil field investment "zombies" — were deemed all but dead [...]

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Of Markets, Mother Nature and Moore’s Law

By |2018-12-20T20:40:49-08:00November 29th, 2014|Business News, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Congress, Corporate Actions, Energy, Future Generations, Monetary Policy, Preventing Pollution, Shareholder Rights|

Lore has it, according to Thomas Friedman, that a Chinese emporor was so enthralled with the invention of the game of chess that he offered to fulfill any wish for the inventor. The simple wish: place 1 grain of rice on the first square of the chessboard, then place 2 grains of rice on the second square, 4 grains on the third square, 8 grains on the fourth and continuing doubling the grains across the entire board. The emporer granted the wish happily, only to discover that by the 64th square, he owed his kingdom in rice. Thomas Friedman included this among many brilliant observations and points made in a talk that he gave to Stanford's Precourt Institute last year. His point here being that trends that seem small and insignificat at the outset, can have huge and uncontrolled impacts if they maintain their incremental growth over time. He posits that we are on the second half of the chessboard in the way the markets work, the impacts we are having on Mother Nature and in the operation of Moore's Law on technology.

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Rockefeller Heirs Divest Oil Fortune of Oil Investments

By |2018-12-20T20:41:22-08:00October 3rd, 2014|Business News, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Divestment from Fossil Fuels, Environmental Reporting, Fossil Fuel Free investing, Preventing Pollution, TIA|

There is much irony to ponder in the news released last week that the Rockefeller heirs have chosen to divest from oil investments. As reported by John Schwartz in and article in the New York Times entitled Rockefellers, Heirs to an Oil Fortun, Will Divest Charity of Fossil Fuels, "John D. Rockefeller built a vast fortune on oil. Now his heirs are abandoning fossil fuels."

The news, coming as it did in advance of the start of the United Nations Climate Summit, nearly trumped financial news reporting of the fact that some 400,000 people representing over 3,000 organizations had turned out in New York City to protest inaction on climate change by marching across Manhattan in the People's Climate March. Additionally, massive supporting marches were held in major cities around the world, including Paris, London, Berlin and Rio de Janeiro.  Unofficial counts put the total number of marchers worldwide at over half a million.  Well, these numbers are staggering and record-breaking but, gosh (snark alert), it just can't be news since readers can already assume that those folks marching are tree-huggers.

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Welcome to our new website

By |2018-12-20T20:42:53-08:00August 18th, 2014|Business News, TIA, Website Development|

  Written by Valerie Gardner, TIA Business Manager, August 18, 2014 As of today, Tiemann Investment Advisors has a new website!  If you've been here before, you may notice that the look of the site is updated but similar in appearance to our former site. It's true: the website has actually been completely overhauled and redone on a new, more [...]

Your money or your health . . . or both?

By |2018-12-20T20:43:18-08:00August 16th, 2014|Business News, Financial Health|

Posted August 16, 2014 What does the financial and health information for the employees of an industrial laundry company in the midwest have to do with how much you care about your investments and your health?  It turns out, quite a lot!  In fact, you can learn a lot about a person's health by asking about their retirement account. An [...]

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TIA’s Outlook and Future Generations Analysis

By |2020-10-25T12:12:35-07:00April 30th, 2014|Business News, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Divestment from Fossil Fuels, Energy, Future Generations, Nuclear Energy, Risk Reduction, TIA|

TIA's Outlook and Future Generations Analysis (Click to open PDF of Future Generations Analysis) OverviewTiemann Investment Advisors, LLC (TIA) is an independent, private, owner-managed investment firm with offices in Menlo Park, California. The firm was co-founded in 2002 by Jonathan Tiemann, Ph.D and Valerie Gardner, JD, MBA.Investing for the Long TermTIA's investment approach is building portfolios for clients based [...]

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Does Preventing Pollution Pay?

By |2018-12-20T21:55:41-08:00February 20th, 2013|Analysts, Business News, Carbon Emissions, Financial Institutions, Preventing Pollution|

A January, 2013 article in the FT about Sir George Buckley, entitled "Retired 3M chief finds a new life in sustainability" has quoted him bemoaning the fact that analysts overlooked the hard work he did during his tenure at 3M to "prevent pollution." Sir George expresses a degree of frustration that the good ESG work he says 3M did, both [...]

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