Who acts, who watches: managing environmental responsibility in IELTS academic reading texts

Environmental themes are increasingly visible in IELTS Academic Reading, yet less attention has been paid to how assessment texts organise ecological responsibility at the point where problem–solution narratives move toward closure. This study examines IELTS Academic Reading texts published between 2016 and 2023, with selected ELT materials included for analytic triangulation. Adopting a qualitative, mechanism-oriented discourse-analytic design, the analysis traces how environmental issues are staged and resolved through a sequential analytic chain combining Situation–Problem–Response–Evaluation (SPRE) staging, appraisal-informed mapping of evaluation, and critical diagnostics of agency and modality. Across the dataset, three recurrent closure-related patterns are identified: (1) ecosophical narrowing, in which late-stage evaluation shifts toward feasibility and instrumental benefit; (2) managerial response bias, which privileges expert-led, procedural, or technical interventions; and (3) evaluation without agency, in which optimistic closure is achieved through possibility-oriented modality and agent-backgrounding rather than obligation. These patterns are interpreted here as managed sustainability: a recurrent discourse pattern through which ecological concern is acknowledged while responsibility remains weakly specified, diffuse, or backgrounded. By shifting attention from topic inclusion to evaluative closure, the study contributes to research on carrier content and assessment discourse by showing how globally circulating test texts may present environmental concern in relatively manageable and low-conflict forms.