In Fall 2022, the Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS) at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) received a $500,000 research grant through the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Acer Access and Development Program to conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA) for maple syrup production. As a result of the grant, SEAS students worked on a master’s project and thesis centered on maple syrup production. Both of these projects were advised by CSS researcher and SEAS adjunct lecturer Geoffrey Lewis. 

SEAS students Jenna Weinstein, Zhu Zhu, Yuan-Chi Li and Thu Rain Yi Win were part of the master’s project team, which involved collaborating with maple syrup producers to develop a life cycle assessment model of maple syrup retail distribution.

SEAS student Spencer Checkoway worked in tandem with the master’s project team on his own thesis, which is focused on the carbon footprint of maple syrup production. 

According to Checkoway, a public life cycle assessment on maple syrup production had never been conducted prior to the LCA initiated by this grant funding.

Zhu, who is focused on the sustainable systems track at SEAS like his fellow master’s project colleagues, was interested in the master’s project because of the skills they could develop working on a LCA.

“I was very interested in understanding how to conduct a life cycle assessment and how to decarbonize the production cycle,” he said. 

Likewise, Weinstein felt like it was a great way to apply what she had learned in her sustainable systems classes to a real-world project. 

“Sustainable system courses focused on long-term thinking about the system impacts,” she said. “We are not just thinking about production in the scope of glass versus plastic, but we are thinking about the distribution impacts throughout each decision of the life cycle process.” 

Before looking at the impacts of maple syrup production or conducting an LCA, Weinstein noted that the team had to first understand what maple syrup entails by focusing on stakeholder engagement. 

Weinstein said the interviews with maple syrup producers were important because they allowed the students to shape their master’s project to the needs of the producers and to the skills they wanted to develop. 

“I have realized that even the most quantitative projects should still begin with stakeholder engagement to give context to whatever quantitative model you are creating in order to create an output that meets community needs,” she said. “If all an LCA is telling us is to use reverse osmosis, we are not getting at the deeper issue.”

Zhu saw that it was important for the team to understand each component of maple syrup from the producers so they could figure out what variables to include in the quantitative analysis component of the project.

“We did interviews with maple syrup producers to get data about packing materials, from the weight of materials to where they got materials,” he said. “We also wanted to know about their transportation methods.” 

The team used the original survey data they collected through interviews with maple syrup producers to model the LCA, Weinstein said.

“Based on the themes that we saw in the interviews, some people [on the team] focused on the theme of package distribution and addressing the central question of what are life cycle impacts of different package types,” she said. 

According to Weinstein, this model allows producers to input the decisions they are making in their sugar bush about their fuel sources, where it is located and the materials they are using. The model outputs an analysis of the life cycle and carbon impacts of the production.

Lewis said a life cycle assessment is an important component of the project because it will help to produce an online carbon footprint calculator tool, which is a deliverable the CSS promised in the grant application.

“In order to do [the online calculator tool] we have to understand the process of maple syrup production, and that varies by size of the producer,” he said. “We had to make sure the calculator can accommodate all variables, from how much wood a producer is using to how much tubing was installed, so anyone who makes syrup can go into the calculator with their parameters and equipment to determine the emissions per gallon of syrup they are producing.”

While the master’s project focused on modeling a maple syrup distribution model, Checkoway focused on the carbon footprint of maple syrup production for his thesis. 

Like the master’s project team, Checkoway began by meeting with maple syrup producers at maple syrup conferences in Michigan. He noted that the maple syrup producer community is an extremely collaborative and open community.

“I met with producers to build data around what sugar makers are doing and what practices they are performing,” he said. “These conferences are like trade shows, specific to maple syrup technology. There is a real exchange of information on topics from reverse osmosis to how to yield more sap or increase the production rates.”

Checkoway collected data focusing on carbon footprints and accounting. 

“Producers submitted each step of their production, as well as what equipment and fuel they were using,” he said. “They also submitted the water and solid waste they produced.”

With these data, Checkoway has worked on a carbon accounting model and published two reports for his thesis. According to Checkoway, this model will help to inform the online calculator tool.

“I built submodels that producers can access and use for specific processes to account for their carbon and energy emissions,” he said.  

Checkoway highlighted that the work funded by the grant, to aid in decarbonizing maple syrup production, is not complete. 

“The grant is funding three years of research,” he said. “The goal is to collect data from producers over three full seasons and produce an LCA to see how things are changing over those three years.”

Lewis hopes that the models created by the master’s project and thesis can be used to compare maple syrup production to the production of other sweeteners.

“Down the line, we could use these models to make comparisons with other sweeteners like corn syrup,” he said.

Checkoway said his thesis and the master’s project can create a collective body of work that allows maple syrup producers to make rational decisions about the sustainability of their product. 

“I hope that producers can look at [the models and calculator] and become aware of the climate impact of maple syrup to understand how they can mitigate those impacts,” he said. 

Weinstein views this project as an opportunity to empower maple syrup producers to make informed decisions with easily accessible information.

“We are trying to make it as easy as possible to give [producers] access to the best information possible,” she said. “This is a tool for them to take on the work of reducing their impacts to whatever extent they are willing to.” 

Lewis would like this project to raise the profile of maple syrup production, what is involved in making syrup, and how production can be done in a more sustainable way. 

“It takes a lot of energy to make maple syrup,” he said. “But what has been great about doing this project is that people always smile when they hear us talk about maple syrup.”