Marks and Spencer, Lastminute.com and Dell have emerged the main winners from the first annual Online Green Awards, organised by e-commerce industry body the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG).

The awards were set up to raise awareness among online merchants about green issues and how they can better promote their services as environmentally friendly, as well as finding more accurate ways of establishing and measuring key performance indicators (KPIs), according to IMRG chief executive James Roper.

"We've found a great willingness for firms to [go green], both for the sake of it and for commercial reasons, but many of them don't know what to do," he explained. "This has huge potential –we haven't even scratched the surface yet. "

Winner of the Large Retailer category voted for by visitors to the MSN Shopping site was Lastminute.com, while an expert panel awarded Dell the winner of the International category, Marks & Spencer the best Large Retailer and Tesco.com won the Grand Prix award.