Managers at Stewart Milne Timber Systems are so enthusiastic about winning an Oxfordshire Business Award, they want to enter again.

Stewart Dalgarno, managing director of the Witney factory that assembles timber frame houses for mainstream housing providers including Berkeley Homes and Bellway, said: "We were delighted to win the award for environmental achievement last year and next we hope we can win the top award."

He added that the recognition had helped the company, whose parent firm is in Scotland where 80 per cent of new build houses are constructed using the production line timber frame system now operating in Witney, turn a problem into an opportunity.

He said that when the company first set up its Witney factory back in 2002 bosses were cagey about environmental questions from journalists.

Then a policy of using only timber certified as coming from sustainable sources was adopted.

Mr Dalgarno added: "Entering the awards concentrated our minds and I would encourage anyone else out there to have a go.

"We have used the award in our advertising and have also found our workforce is keen to be associated with an organisation with a good environmental record."

And so useful was a good environmental track record as a come-on to customers that the company decided to go further.

It called in the Carbon Trust to carry out a carbon audit on its entire Witney operation.

Mr Dalgarno said: "They pointed out we were doing one or two strange things.

For instance leaving open the main doors where the lorries pull up and thereby wasting heat.

Now we are working on a system that will enable us to use the wood chippings as a source of energy fuel. This could save us £50,000 a year."

The company is constructing a £250,000 low-energy house to go on show at the Building Research Establishment near Watford to show others in the trade how the houses of the future could operate.