Sostenibilità ambientale e Codice dei contratti pubblici. Il ruolo della discrezionalità amministrativa.

The essay addresses the issue of environmental sustainability in the current discipline of public contracts, investigating, in particular, its interactions with the principle of result and the protection of competition. It is pointed out that in the Public Contracts Code, the pursuit of environmental objectives configures a component of the administrative result and competition a tool to achieve these objectives. Special attention is paid to the institution of minimum environmental criteria, the analysis of which represents one of the most significant perspectives through which to conduct this investigation, focusing on the relationship between environmental sustainability, administrative result and competition. The role of administrative discretion in achieving sustainable development goals is examined, in a context, such as that of public contracts, marked by the principle of results and conditioned by the provision of minimum environmental criteria. The article supports the thesis that discretionary power, even in the current regulatory framework, is the core of environmental protection, being the instrument through which the general purposes that the Code poses (particularly those of economy and timeliness, but also those of publicity and transparency) are weighed comparatively against the environmental needs related to the specific public contract, depending on the concrete case.