Faber-Castell

Faber-Castell is said to be Germany's oldest industrial company. It began as a carpenter's workshop, founded by Kasper Faber in Stein, near Nuremberg in 1761. Today Faber-Castell is still owned and managed by the same family, now in its 8th generation since the founder. Faber-Castell is one of the best known companies in Germany, where every child grows up learning to write with Faber-Castell pencils and pens. But the company has an international reputation for its fine artist materials, especially its colored pencils and pastels. In ecologically sensitive Germany, there is a heightened consumer awareness of the environment, and German companies are held to account for their environmental record. All products of the Faber-Castell group are manufactured using environmentally safe, high-quality materials and low-pollution processes. For example, the company uses only wood from its own reforestation and soil conservation project in Brazil to manufacture pencils. The company grows its own trees on land that was once denuded and deforested, subject to soil erosion. Faber-Castell even recycles the waste products from manufacturing pencils to increase the fertility of the soil.