Scenarios for the reduction of environmental impact in Agaricus bisporus production

The aim of this study is to obtain a critical analysis of the reduction of environmental impacts in the production of the mushroom Agaricus bisporus. This is done through a series of proposed scenarios at each stage of the production process: mycelium production, composting and cultivation cycle. The improvement scenarios included in this research are: replacement of cereal straw by hay, as base material of compost; elimination of the pre-moistening phase of the straw; use of biofilters for composting in closed tunnels and pasteurization chambers; maximization of load capacity of compost in air-conditioned growing room; and energy optimization and use of renewable energy sources in the production process. The implementation of the successive improvement scenarios leads to a decrease of the environmental impact. The individual scenarios can be combined to obtain a reduction in all impact categories; one of the scenario combinations provides the best results, producing reductions in all the categories, from 16.25% in Global Warming to 194.63% in Terrestrial ecotoxicity, with other important reductions such as 55.28% in Marine aquatic ecotoxicity.