Resilience moves to centre stage at PEI’s Global Summit in Berlin

At this year’s PEI Global Summit in Berlin, one message was clear: resilience is no longer a side conversation, it is becoming a core investment and value protection priority for infrastructure investors and asset owners.

The Summit brought together global leaders across private markets to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of the infrastructure sector. Alongside resilience, key themes included digitalisation and the growth of data centres (driven by AI and hyperscalers), energy transmission and grid readiness, defence and security considerations, transition pathways such as wind re-powering, transport and mobility systems, and social infrastructure including healthcare and housing. Together, these discussions highlighted the growing convergence between sustainability, resilience, and investment performance and the need for tools and frameworks that help the market navigate complexity with clarity.

For Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation (GIB), the convening was an important opportunity to engage with peers and partners, and to contribute to the growing momentum behind more transparent, measurable approaches to resilience and sustainability in infrastructure.

GIB on the resilience agenda

Roger Cruz, Co-Director of Infrastructure Quality and Finance pillar, joined a high-level panel on resilience, exploring how investors and asset managers are moving from ambition to implementation. A central theme was the need to make resilience operational - embedded in decision-making, governance, and performance management, rather than treated as a standalone concept.

Across the conversation, speakers highlighted how risk is changing in nature and scale: infrastructure is increasingly exposed to interconnected and cascading hazards, where events can trigger wider system disruption across supply chains, energy networks, cities, and services. This shift reinforces the importance of integrated approaches that connect risk understanding, asset design, and long-term financial performance.

Read GIB’s latest White Paper to know more about long-term financial performance of infrastructure projects: Improved financial performance of sustainable infrastructure in the context of climate change

Five takeaways: where resilience is heading

The panel discussion captured several key takeaways that are increasingly shaping investor expectations:

1. From concept to capability: Resilience must move from a broad ambition to a structured, measurable capability that can be managed across assets and portfolios.

2. Systemic, multi hazard risk is the new normal: Risks are no longer isolated. Interdependencies between infrastructure systems mean hazards can cascade and amplify impacts.

3. Critical infrastructure comes with obligations - and opportunities: Criticality brings responsibility, but also highlights strategic importance, long term relevance and the ability to attract capital when performance and preparedness are credible.

4. Investor expectations are shifting: Limited partners (LPs) and general partners (GPs) are reassessing resilience as part of fiduciary responsibility and long term value protection.

5. Volatility is creating investable themes: Resilience, continuity, and energy security are increasingly viewed not only as risk mitigations, but also as areas for innovation and investment.

Looking ahead

For GIB, PEI Berlin reinforced the importance of collaboration across investors, asset managers, advisers, and technical partners to strengthen the foundations of sustainable infrastructure. We will continue to contribute to market discussions that support better decision‑making, improved transparency, and more resilient outcomes, including through the FAST‑Infra workstream and our broader engagement with partners across the infrastructure ecosystem.

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