A FIRM has made £55,000 worth of energy efficiency savings - by offering staff bacon butties for their ideas.

Fort Vale Engineering, Brunswick Street, Nelson, has been shortlisted for a Red Rose business environmental award for its work, which has saved 308 tons of carbon in the last year.

As part of the energy efficiency drive, bosses asked the 210 staff to split into groups, and the one which thought up the most ideas was presented with breakfast.

Group health and safety manager Carl Thornley said most of the improvements were easy to do in all companies, and Fort Vale has already been spreading the word among its customers and partners.

He said: "As a company we realised that energy costs were going through the roof and we needed to seriously reduce the energy we were using.

"We wanted to get as many employees involved as possible because they are the ones doing the day-to-day work who can see where savings can be made.

"We got a fantastic response, with 196 ideas, and a lot of them have been implemented.

"It's had a brilliant impact for us as a company in terms of the £55,000 saving in the past 12 months, but it's about more than that now.

"The bottom line for any company has to be money, but we have got a definite drive now to do something for the environment too because it is such a big issue these days."

Ideas already making a difference include replacing lighting with more energy-efficient systems, reducing pressure in the air compressor and fixing timers to ensure all equipment is switched off as soon as workers have finished with it.

But the firm is not stopping there. When it moves to its new premises in Simonstone later this year, Fort Vale could be running on power from wind turbines and biomass.

A nature reserve area is also planned for the new factory.

Mr Thornley said: "I think it's something that people care about a lot and all our staff were really enthusiastic about it - even if the bacon butties did sway them a bit more towards getting involved!"