It was more than a year ago that Zachary Bouchard had his epiphany. Dressed in a suit and tie, Bouchard stared out the 25th-floor windows of a downtown Boston high-rise overlooking Faneuil Hall. The Canterbury native and 2003 Boston College graduate was working in retail financial services and making close to $70,000 a year.

"I was just looking down at all these consumers. They just looked like little ants running around carrying their expensive shopping bags everywhere, and I saw how the world worked," Bouchard said. "I knew that there was no way that I could convince people to stop shopping. So if they're going to shop, why not make it so it doesn't deplete every last resource that we have?"

Bouchard quit his career, traveled, worked odd jobs to make ends meet and began writing a book about ways consumers could reduce their eco-footprint, or effect on the environment. From there, the idea was born to create a website where consumers could find every eco-friendly product on the market all in one place.

After six months of research, Bouchard and his stepfather, Ron Litalien, have launched GreenShopper.com, a site affiliated with Amazon.com that sells more than 15,000 products from hundreds of companies certified as environmentally friendly. GreenShopper will act as a middleman for consumers who don't have time to search through products on the web that may or may not actually be eco-friendly.

"I was amazed at how many companies were devoting their entire product line or their entire business model factoring in the environment," Bouchard said. "But I realized there's not really one website that can handle all that, because people in this day and age like convenience and one-stop shopping. That's why Wal-Mart and those big stores are so successful."

The site, which Bouchard began advertising in environmental magazines and newspapers this week, bills itself as the "world's largest environmentally friendly super store and online community for green shoppers." Although similar sites exist, Bouchard said most are forced to limit their selection because they are selling products wholesale and don't have enough storage space. Other companies, he said, can't afford the fees that affiliates must pay to be able to sell a product on their website.

Bouchard did it by entering in an agreement with Amazon, which will process all the orders and give a small percentage of the profit to GreenShopper. (Amazon confidentiality rules prohibit him from disclosing the actual percentage.) With Litalien helping with the web programming and Bouchard's father, an attorney, helping with the legal paperwork, the cost to launch the site was minimal, but the time that

went into it was enormous, Bouchard said.

He spent months researching hundreds of green companies that sell their products through Amazon, then hand-selected the products he found were environmentally friendly and pasted them onto GreenShopper.

The site's selection includes office supplies, organic food and rechargeable batteries.

Its homepage features products of the week, including Tom's of Maine apricot deodorant, a deluxe water saver showerhead, a clothes drying rack, long-lasting compact fluorescent light bulbs from Greenlite USA, canvas tote bags, and Seventh Generation natural glass and surface cleaner.

Environmentally friendly products tend to be more expensive, and Bouchard said studies show that their consumers are willing to pay more. Still, Bouchard and Litalien hope the site will reach beyond a set community of shoppers and convince other consumers that it is worthwhile in the long run to pay a little extra now.

"It's kind of like a supply problem," Litalien said. "There's low supply for those types of products, so the price is kind of high. If we can increase the demand and increase the supply, the prices will start coming down, which in turn will increase the demand."

Part of the site is dedicated to educating customers, Litalien said. Pages of background information are available on environmental problems, such as global warming, nonrenewable energy, ozone depletion and overpopulation. The site also sells books and DVDs that discuss environmental issues.

Both Bouchard and Litalien are concerned that the recent "green washing" of certain companies - even Wal-Mart is selling organic food - could be just a fad. But the key to maintaining the green movement is the participation of big companies that are starting to respond to consumer demands, they said.

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