Todd Sheppard — Author of Buried Truth
Todd Sheppard is the author of Buried Truth and the founder of Envirocheck, New Zealand's independent methamphetamine testing and property risk intelligence company. His work combines years of field experience testing properties across the country with a clear-eyed examination of the testing industry itself.
Todd Sheppard
Author & Founder
From the Field to the Page
Todd Sheppard has spent years on-site, testing residential properties across New Zealand for methamphetamine contamination. From pre-purchase assessments to tenancy-change screens and detailed investigations, that fieldwork is the basis of both Envirocheck's practice and the arguments made in Buried Truth.
The book grew out of a simple observation: the testing industry in New Zealand needed an honest reckoning. Todd had seen first-hand how conflicts of interest, inconsistent methodology, and a lack of structural independence could produce results that served the testing company rather than the property owner. Buried Truth is his attempt to set that record straight.
Envirocheck was founded on the same principle that drives the book — test and advise, never remediate. That separation is not a marketing position. It is the structural safeguard that ensures results are based on evidence alone.
30,000+
Properties assessed by the Envirocheck team
NZS 8510
:2017 compliant methodology
Nationwide
Coverage across New Zealand
The Work Behind the Book
Buried Truth is not a theoretical critique. It is built on years of practical assessment work across New Zealand's diverse property landscape.
Field Experience Across New Zealand
Todd has personally assessed properties across New Zealand — from Northland's highest-consumption districts to the student rentals of Dunedin and the post-earthquake rebuild stock of Christchurch. That fieldwork is the foundation of Buried Truth.
Independent, Test-Only Practice
From the beginning, Todd built Envirocheck around a single principle: test and advise, never remediate. This separation removes the financial incentive to find contamination and is central to the argument made in Buried Truth.
NZS 8510:2017 Methodology
Every assessment Todd and the Envirocheck team conduct follows NZS 8510:2017 precisely — including NIOSH Method 9111 for detailed assessments. The book examines why methodology matters as much as the result itself.
Regional Risk Intelligence
Working with publicly available wastewater monitoring data and years of field observation, Todd has built a regional picture of methamphetamine risk that helps property owners understand how risk differs across New Zealand.
What Buried Truth Argues
"Property risk isn't just tested. It's managed. And you can't manage what you don't understand."
— Buried Truth, Todd Sheppard
Why Independence Matters
Todd's central argument — in the book and in the business — is that independence is not a feature. It is the foundation. A testing company that also profits from remediation has a financial interest in finding contamination. A company that only tests has no such interest.
This is the distinction Envirocheck was built around, and it is the distinction Buried Truth documents in detail. When the same company tests and remediates, the property owner is not the only party the results serve.
Todd's work, through both Envirocheck and the book, is an argument for a testing industry that answers only to the evidence — and to the property owner who needs the truth.
Assessment Coverage Across New Zealand
Todd and the Envirocheck team assess properties across every major New Zealand region. Explore the regional risk profiles that inform the book's arguments.