Can investors combine profit from growth with improving our impact on the planet? 

Growth and protecting the environment are often seen as mutually exclusive, but Impax Environmental Markets is an investment trust that believes the opposite is true if you back the right companies.

On this episode of the Investing Show, Jon Forster, senior portfolio manager at Impax Environmental Markets, joins Simon Lambert to explain how the trust searches for the companies that can deliver future profits and be beneficial for the world we live in.

Impax Environmental Markets is an investment trust with a history dating back long before the recent ESG - environmental, social and governance - boom in the investing world.

It backs companies that are 'enabling the cleaner and more efficient delivery of basic services like food, water and power' and are 'helping to address significant environmental risks, like climate change and pollution'.

A powerful tailwind from a surge in interest in environmental investment and the rush to growth stocks saw Impax EM make major gains in the run-up to the pandemic and the market surge that followed the initial Covid crash.

But as inflation and interest rates spiked and investors turned away from growth, Impax Environmental Markets suffered from a downturn in sentiment and saw the value of its assets and its share price slide. 

But Jon says this has now put the trust in an ideal position to be able to profit from backing companies at much better valuations, despite there being a stronger investment case that before Covid.

He explains his view on the trust's performance, the outlook for the market now and discusses some of the interesting stocks Impax Environmental Markets holds.