• Anniversary year sees launch of new products
• Strong growth in sales of interactive boards
• Green policies proactively pursued in offices and in Production

Ahrensburg, 30th January 2010 – 1960 was a good year in which to launch a career: as The Beatles captured the hearts of fans at gigs played along the city’s Reeperbahn, a few kilometres away in the Barmbek district of Hamburg, school friends Carl-Wilhelm Edding and Volker Detlef Ledermann also landed their first number one hit: the edding No.1!

In the spring of 1970, much to the sorrow of their fans, the Beatles split. Marker specialist, edding, meanwhile continued writing history and is now celebrating its 50th anniversary. Whereas, in those early days, it was mainly warehouse owners and forwarding agents who would use edding markers to label their sacks, boxes and crates, the listed company’s fans today include millions of users with a whole host of different requirements and expectations in the field of writing and marking. And that’s right across the globe! For edding now has offices and distribution partners the world over, its products being sold in more than 100 different countries.

When Mr Edding and Mr Ledermann began importing their felt-tipped pen from Japan, they were working from a basement office in Barmbek. Their start-up capital consisted of just 5,000 Marks and a single typewriter. It would have cost money to register a made-up name for the firm - money that the two founders did not have. So they decided to use one of their surnames. “We both thought that Edding was more succinct, snappier and more inter¬national-sounding than Ledermann”, recalls Volker Ledermann. The edding No. 1 became a sensational success. As the years passed, the founders honed their product portfolio, with edding developing to become a synonym for permanent marking. Today’s product range includes a good 200 specialists.

edding markers have not only conquered workshops, offices and studios – they are also to be found in industry and production. In fact, eddings are used in any environment, be it sterile, hot, greasy or damp, where handwritten notes and markings need to last. Yet it’s not just commercial users who appreciate the qualities of edding products: amateur art-and-crafters, DIY enthusiasts and school pupils, too, all value the versatile range of colourful edding pens and markers, for all purposes.

With the addition of Legamaster – formerly planMASTER – in 1965, the company expanded its range to include products for visual communication. Whiteboards that can be written on with wipeable markers, offering the kind of overview that people need when conducting presentations or working in groups. Visual communication has also felt the impact of the digital revolution, a development heralding the end of the “chalk age”: these days, it is “eBoards” that are recording the company’s strongest growth in sales - interactive boards on which hand-written notes are digitised for use on the computer. It is in schools and educational establishments in particular where eBoards are replacing outmoded, green chalk boards.

In 2008, with almost 600 employees worldwide, edding earned net sales of around € 114 million. Products are manufactured not just at the German site in Bautzen, but at locations in three other countries besides. Company headquarters and its central warehouse are today located in Ahrensburg, north of Hamburg.

For the anniversary year, edding has a number of new products up its sleeve. For, when all is said and done, the company wants to keep writing the history of tomorrow. Wherever. Whenever. These new innovations include the new art series, designed by young street artists. The Fun¬tastics range for kids contains “colouring walls”, wall stickers and felt pens with an ergonomic grip ideal for little hands (particularly good for children aged six to nine). In addition, edding’s EcoLine range is being expanded with the launch of two highlighters containing inks based on naturally available ingredients. This saves resources because no finite materials (such as crude oil) are needed to make them. What’s more, the barrel and the cap of the highlighters are made of at least 70 percent renewable resources.

The two founders have since retired from frontline activities. Per Ledermann, son of Volker Ledermann, now heads the Board of Directors. “As a small boy, I would walk the corridors of edding. Now, I have followed in my father’s great footsteps. For me, a genuine dream job,” claims Per Ledermann. As well as overseeing ongoing product development, Ledermann - like his father before him - is particularly keen to promote the concept of sustainability. The environmental management systems of edding AG were certified in 2008 to ISO 14001. The new generation of injection-moulding machines for marker barrels requires 40 percent less energy than its predecessors did. Meanwhile, 80 per cent of the plastic components in a marker are made of recycled material. A photovoltaic system has also been installed on the roof of company headquarters as well as on the roof of the production site in Bautzen, providing solar power.

“It’s a green approach that we follow on a small scale too”, adds Per Ledermann. We print on both sides of a sheet of paper; different teams share one printer; video-conference systems among colleagues replace business trips wherever possible. And our coffee machines in the kitchen turn off automatically whenever they are not in use.  It is also possible to observe the company’s sustainable approach on the lawns of the company premises in Ahrensburg. A herd of sheep take care of cutting the grass – they work in silence for the most part - and even work on Sunday mornings.