LAS VEGAS, — This year the organizers of the Consumer Electronics Show made a conscious effort to lighten the impact of the event while giving companies a forum for showing their green wares.

The CES, attracting 140,000 attendees from Jan. 7-10, included a display area for sustainable technologies, panels focusing on electronics recycling and energy use, and announcements from companies about their green plans.

In the technology showcase, Fujitsu displayed a laptop with a casing made partially from corn, Intel revealed a chip that used the tenth of power of current chips, and Voltaic showed off its newest solar bag, which produces enough power to charge a laptop. Fujitsu's PC shell is made from corn-based polymers as well as plastic, and emits less carbon than plastic-only cases when manufactured.

Although they didn't gain as much attention as Bill Gates’ 11th and final CES keynote speech, other announcements highlighted companies’ green commitments.

Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba unveiled their Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Co. to handle the electronics collection and recycling programs for them and other companies. And Hewlett-Packard pledged to reduce the energy consumed by its computers and laptop by 25 percent by 2010.

Aside from green initiatives by exhibitors, the event itself went green this year. Planners committed to making donations to renewable energy, energy efficiency and reforestation projects to offset carbon emissions caused by the event. The show also featured recycling bins throughout the show, flyers printed on recyclable paper, biodegradable food containers and utensils, recycled carpet in some spaces and diversion of all light bulbs and batteries from landfills.