Luxembourg · Mertert · Trimodal Logistics · Green Boats Engineering
Luxembourg: When Sustainable Logistics Became Tangible
Unleash Future Boats came to Mertert on a personal invitation to present Green Boats Engineering.
What stayed with us was larger than one presentation: an unusually dense conversation between logistics,
infrastructure, public institutions and technology — and the feeling that Luxembourg could become a real
building block in UFB’s European journey.
01
Mertert made the system visible
The event was not placed in Mertert by accident. Luxembourg’s river port is the country’s only trimodal
logistics platform, connecting inland shipping on the Moselle with rail and road. It links Luxembourg directly
into European waterways and the wider trans-European transport network.
For UFB, that mattered immediately. The company had spent years thinking about autonomous vessels not as isolated
boats, but as parts of a connected logistics system: vessels, ports, digital interfaces, shipyards, energy and
surrounding transport infrastructure.
Luxembourg’s only trimodal platform
port area
rail network inside the port
road network inside the port
The official event programme reflected exactly that systems view. Mertert’s sustainable commercial development,
a Sustainable Logistics Innovation Hub, maritime innovation and technology pitches were discussed in one afternoon.
UFB was introduced as an ecosystem around electric autonomous boats and ships, fully digital harbours and shipyards,
with Green Boats Engineering as its decarbonisation vertical.
02
The striking thing was the density of the room
Diana had travelled to Luxembourg on a personal invitation from Tobias Verlende to present UFB’s work.
Around the same programme were the Municipality of Mertert, actors connected to Luxembourg’s mobility and
public-works environment, the Maritime Cluster, logistics specialists and technology companies.
The impression was not simply that Luxembourg was small. It was that the relevant interfaces were unusually close.
People who touched the same problem from different sides were able to meet in one place, exchange context quickly
and move from introduction to implementation questions without months of organisational distance in between.
Short decision paths are an abstract idea until the people who need one another are actually sitting in the same room.
For a systems company, that kind of density is valuable. UFB did not need only customers or investors.
It needed ports, municipalities, infrastructure, logistics, regulation, engineering partners and regions willing
to think across traditional boundaries.
03
A presentation that began in French
There was also a very human moment.
The technical presentation had been prepared in English. Diana began differently. Standing in front of the room,
she switched spontaneously into French for the opening — not as a performance, but because it felt right to meet
the country in its own language first.
The atmosphere changed immediately. The personal introduction created warmth; when the presentation reached the
technical section, she returned to the agreed English and moved into Green Boats Engineering, zero-emission
propulsion and the wider maritime systems architecture.
Then: engineering.
That small change of language captured something important about the visit. Technology travels better when the
relationship around it is human.
04
And somewhere along the way, Luxembourg became personal
The formal programme ended, but the visit did not feel finished. Diana was invited further into Luxembourg’s
Moselle region, including time at a historic wine estate. Friends were met again; new friendships began.
Conversations moved away from slides and towards the place itself.
Luxembourg’s wine culture, the Moselle landscape and the compactness of the country gave the technology trip
another dimension. This was no longer simply a location on a business itinerary.
Diana genuinely enjoyed being there.
Together with Brussels and Switzerland, Luxembourg increasingly became one of those European places that felt
connected to the larger architecture around UFB: markets, institutions, industry, infrastructure and people.
It felt like confirmation that it would become part of the journey.
05
Why Mertert mattered to UFB
UFB arrived with a maritime technology story. Mertert returned a systems story.
Trimodal logistics made the interface between water, rail and road concrete. The room demonstrated how much faster
an idea can mature when public actors, infrastructure, industry and technology are close enough to understand one
another. And the personal welcome showed that European expansion is not only about market access — it is also about
finding places where a company and its people can build relationships that last.
It became one of the places where the company’s European systems architecture felt unusually natural.
