It is time for some pre-Christmas cheer with an arboreal twist. I want to tell you the story of one of the most successful investments I have encountered this year. It is in a smart alternative investment sector. It is also doing the right thing by dear old mother earth. It is called the Quadris Environmental fund, and it had managed to lift the price of its growth shares from 149p in January to 193p by the end of November (the price rose from 175p to 193p in November alone).

What is the source of this outperformance? Timber. But not just any timber: it is teak, managed in a Brazilian plantation under careful socially responsible investment guidelines, by local people. This highly profitable plantation sits in the state of Mato Grosso in southern Brazil and is a clever mix of conservation (the teak plantations surround 15,000 hectares of native forest, full of wildlife including forest wolves and rhea, the South American ostrich) and commercial logic (teak hardwood prices remain robust and much of the output is sold internationally).