Stormy conditions blew through Rotterdam at the beginning of the week, providing the perfect metaphor for this year’s IPE Real Assets Infrastructure & Natural Capital Global Conference & Awards 2025. As delegates assembled at the Haven Hotel, overlooking the historic harbour area of Leuvehaven, Prisoners of Geography author Tim Marshall kicked things off with an exploration of the “wind blowing through geopolitics”.
But the unsettling tumult of current day politics is arguably a return to the norm. “What’s happening now isn’t unusual,” he said. In fact, Europe has been rudely awoken from its “holiday from history” by a US administration no longer guaranteeing its protection. The “tension for our economies” in the old continent now relates to choosing between spending on welfare states and defence.
Some of the biggest institutional investors on the stage also showed signs of being able to take a dispassionate view of the situation. Political risk might be changing, but “it’s not new”, said Brandon Soeiro, investment director for real assets at AustralianSuper. “We’re buyers of risk,” he said of Australia’s largest superannuation fund. The question is: “can we contextualise and price that risk?”
Similarly, Jan-Willem Ruisbroek, managing director of global infrastructure and private natural capital at APG Asset Management, urged investors not to “panic” over geopolitics and remain focused on the underlying mega-trends driving the asset class over the long term.
From ports to data centres, from hydrogen to nuclear
Nearby, the sprawling modern-day Port of Rotterdam – Europe’s largest – also faces winds of change, not least the decision by Shell to scrap the construction of a planned biofuels plant. Manager of strategic finance and treasury Tim de Knegt told the conference about the port’s competitiveness and energy strategy, and the challenges facing what he described as the “gateway to Europe’s economy and energy transition”.
He said “collaboration is crucial” between the wide range of companies in the port – many of which are multinationals – today. “Collaboration amongst one another is crucial to keep that competitiveness in Rotterdam,” he said. “That’s the real challenge we have right now. You see everybody kind of going at it for themselves, [which] creates a lot of tension.”
Rotterdam is seeking to become Europe’s “hydrogen hub” and De Knegt spoke of the port’s “ambitious goals” in hydrogen production and transportation, with a view to decarbonising the energy system.
And the challenges of decarbonisation also apply to the the booming data-centre market. Rohini Pahwa, partner at Arjun Infrastructure Partners, explained how the future of data-centre demand, which had historically been driven by the growth in cloud computing, would be increasingly fuelled by AI training and inference.
One of the increasingly cited future solutions of providing clean power to data centres is nuclear – in the form of small modular reactors (SMRs). Christian Sjölander, co-founder and CEO of Nordic SMR developer Kärnfull Next, said the technology had the promise of providing “exactly the things that are needed for the data centres of tomorrow”.
Koos Alfrink, head of digital infrastructure at Dutch pension fund investor PGGM, said a significant innovation has been taking place to make data centres more sustainable, including closed-water systems and heat capture for district heating. “How I see it, nuclear – it’s still too far,” he said. “The innovation is interesting, but we are one by one tackling sustainability issues in the data center industry.”
But Robin Lutz, senior director for infrastructure at La Caisse, highlighted the Canadian institutional investor’s recent foray into nuclear energy in the UK. “We actually just announced a major investment in nuclear,” he said. “We’re going to be the largest private investor in Sizewell C, which is a greenfield nuclear project in the UK, which is effectively going to be the largest generation asset in the entire of the UK.”
Lutz said La Caisse – which won the top award at the IPE Real Assets Infrastructure & Natural Capital Global Awards – had “strong views about the sector” with potential opportunities in Sweden and France. But while some countries are revisiting nuclear power, such as Germany and Taiwan, while others are moving away from it.
Natural capital: from energy transition to food transformation
But while the energy transition is one of the biggest themes for institutional investors today, Ruisbroek highlighted how the risk of biodiversity loss could become an even bigger issue for investors to address.
This conviction has been helped by his recent expansion of his remit to include the Dutch pension fund asset manager’s private natural capital team. His comments were a neat link to the second day of the conference, which had a focus on natural capital.
Eoin McDonald, director at Gresham House, defined natural capital as sustainable agriculture, forestry and the newer concept of nature-based solutions, which includes payment for ecosystem services, such as mitigation, banking, flood defences and biodiversity credits.
There was a debate as to whether natural capital should be understood as an asset class in itself or a broader investment theme. But as Maastricht professor and conference chair Nils Kok concluded, regardless of the answer to the question, the takeway from the day was that it had to be included in institutional portfolios.
Paul Berhens, British Academy Global Professor at the University of Oxford, explained how transforming the global food system was just as important – if not more so – than the energy transition. Increasing the resilience of the global food system will require change from consumers, producers and investors, he said.
A big part of this involves moving to a more plant-based diet globally, which will require effective communication from governments – but potentially other actors. Institutional investors could play a role here, Behrens suggested. “As communicators, you’re also change makers in communities,” he said.
