Clustering of sensor nodes is one of the prominent methods applied to Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). In the cluster-based WSN scenario, the sensor nodes are assembled to generate clusters. The sensor nodes are composed of limited battery power. Therefore, energy efficiency in WSN is crucial. A load of sensor node and its distance from base station (BS) are the significant factors of energy consumption. Therefore, load balancing according to the transmission distance is necessary for WSN. In this paper, we propose a load-balanced clustering algorithm using Fuzzy C means (FCM) algorithm and an energy-efficient routing approach using BAT-algorithm (FC-RBAT). The cluster heads (CHs) are selected according to the score of the sensor node from each cluster. After selection of the CHs, the BAT-inspired routing algorithm is applied on the CHs. The best routing path from each CH to the BS is obtained from the proposed approach. The simulations are conducted on evaluation factors such as energy consumption, active sensor nodes per round, the sustainability of the network and the standard deviation of a load of the sensor node. It is observed that FC-RBAT outperforms compared algorithms, namely EAUCF, DUCF and SGA, under the evaluation factors.