Thematic real estate investing has entered a second era. In the previous decade, broad secular themes such as demographics, decarbonisation and digitalisation were mapped onto real estate sectors as long-duration demand catalysts. However, early thematic approaches tended to emphasise long-run demand signals — such as “demographics support housing” and “technology boosts logistics” — more than the structural frictions that determine whether that demand becomes deliverable. Key bottlenecks — including grid capacity and energy availability, construction and labour costs, planning delays, and the cost of capital — are decisive in determining which themes translate into investable supply.
During the past five years, successive macro shocks — including pandemic-era supply-chain failures, global inflationary pressures, rising sovereign debt, energy insecurity triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, heightened protectionism and the soaring power need driven by
