Some pension funds are taking a bigger step into investment alternatives, looking to create efficiencies by rolling real estate into a larger “real assets” bucket that also includes infrastructure, energy, natural resources, timberland and agricultural land.

Pensions first introduced real assets allocations a decade ago. Lessons learned during the global financial crisis have fueled a desire to increase portfolio diversification with alternatives that deliver stable income along with returns that are not correlated with stocks and bonds.

“The experience of the financial crisis reinforced the illiquidity of these private equity strategies,” says Marc Cardillo, managing director at Cambridge Associates, a consulting firm based in Boston.

Many investors are now thinking more broadly across the full spectrum of real assets alternatives. Now they are not only looking at how compelling an investment in an industrial property might be compared with an office or