Key themes from his comments:
- Resilience over cost: Occupiers are moving away from fragile global supply routes towards multi-layered contingency models. Supply chain security is rising up the boardroom agenda, ahead of pure cost control.
- A different kind of building: Reshored production tends to be automated and capital-intensive. This pulls demand towards specialised, higher-spec buildings, so power capacity and grid security are now as important to asset selection as location.
- Europe and the US differ: US onshoring has been driven by major federal legislation, which has channelled capital into domestic industrial corridors. In Europe, onshoring is focused on intra-regional alignment, drawing on cost-effective markets such as Central and Eastern Europe and Southern Europe.
- A structural, long-term shift: Castelein sees onshoring as adding a durable layer of occupier demand to complement e-commerce and omnichannel retail. Reconfiguring supply networks involves long-term capital commitments, so these strategies are less exposed to short-term trade policy cycles.
The wider feature also notes that supply-chain change is likely to be gradual rather than rapid.
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