Saabira Chaudhuri
Journalist
and author
I'm Saabira Chaudhuri, an award-winning London-based journalist and the author of Consumed - How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic - a Financial Times Best Book of 2025. I frequently write about sustainability, packaging, environmental regulation, consumer behaviour and corporate strategy.
I spent 12 years as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal in London and New York, stepping down in 2025 following the publication of Consumed. Before that I worked on staff for Dow Jones newswires, Forbes and Fast Company in New York, and for Mint in New Delhi, in various editing, multimedia and reporting roles.
Consumed, published by Bonnier, was born out of years of my reporting on consumer goods companies' increasingly difficult yet dependent relationship with single-use plastic. It's a deeply reported, narrative non-fiction account of how we ended up in a world awash with plastic, showing why the solutions that companies have tried to reduce plastic waste have been ineffective.
Consumed won a 2026 Nautilus Book Award, was longlisted for the FT & Schroder's Business Book of the Year Award 2025 and shortlisted for the SABEW Best Business Book of the Year Award 2025. While I'm really proud of the book, in retrospect I'm even prouder that I finished it while juggling two babies under the age of two and working for WSJ.
My reporting is currently focused on everyday environmental assumptions and the tradeoffs involved in tackling waste, biodiversity, emissions and human health. In addition to being a journalist, I also advise companies and nonprofits on content strategy, speak widely about my work on radio, podcasts and at conferences and events, and am quoted as an expert on plastics and sustainability by both international outlets and trade publications.
I believe in the power of storytelling to surface new evidence, challenge assumptions, and drive social and regulatory change. Apart from the Wall Street Journal, my work has been published in The New York Times, Bloomberg, The New Scientist, Wired, The Times of India, Fast Company, Forbes, Reuters, The Guardian, The Hindu, Mint, Business Insider, Vogue Business, The LA Times and others.
I grew up in Bangalore and still return there frequently. I got my BA in sociology from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts (sticking it out despite being persistently homesick.) I spent a year studying law and sociology at the London School of Economics. I was later awarded the Wall Street Journal's fully-funded Asia fellowship to New York University -- given to one journalist in Asia each year -- where I earned an MA in Business and Economic Reporting.