International Journal of Technology (2018) 7: 1415-1428 ISSN 2086-9614 © IJTech 2018 GREEN MAINTENANCE FOR HERITAGE BUILDINGS: AN APPRAISAL APPROACH FOR ST PAUL’S CHURCH IN MELAKA, MALAYSIA Brit Anak Kayan 1 , Imaduddin Abdul Halim 1 , Nurush Syahadah Mahmud 1* 1 The Centre for Building, Construction & Tropical Architecture (BuCTA), Faculty of Built Environment, University of Malaya (UM), 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Received: April 2018 / Revised: October 2018 / Accepted: December 2018) ABSTRACT Maintenance is an important conservation activity in ensuring the survival of heritage buildings for future generations. Knowledge and practices in this field have essentially shifted toward the sustainability framework, comprised of economic, societal, and environmental parameters. Regarding the environment, low carbon repair became the main item on the sustainability agenda for heritage buildings, and this case study supports this growing agenda by examining the “Green Maintenance” concept and methodology. The study aims to determine the applicability of Green Maintenance in assessing low carbon repair for laterite stone structures based on their embodied carbon expenditure, focusing on St Paul‟s Church within the Historical City of Melaka, Malaysia. In addition, this study highlights the nature of the maintenance and common techniques and materials used in laterite stone repairs. The results reveal that the most sustainable repair techniques are influenced by the longevity of the repair and the embodied carbon expenditure, represented by the Environmental Maintenance Impact (EMI) of Green Maintenance modeling. The EMI measures the amount of “true” CO 2 emissions in a sample of laterite-stone-repair techniques over the selected maintenance period, which can be calculated through the “cradle-to-site” boundary of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The study also found that the quality of repair (workmanship), material durability, and selection of materials to deal with specific areas of deterioration are other variables to be considered when determining the most sustainable technique. Keywords: Environmental Maintenance Impact (EMI); Green maintenance; Heritage building; Laterite stones; Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) 1. INTRODUCTION At least half of the buildings that will be used worldwide in 2050 have already been built, and heritage buildings will soon constitute a significant portion of the global building stock (Levine et al., 2007). Kamal et al. (2008) reported that 39,000 of Malaysia‟s historical buildings were available in early 1992, and that number is expected to grow. In the UK, English Heritage (2010) announced that 1.5% of its historical buildings would be added into the existing building stock in a year, and 372,000 of them will be designated as heritage buildings. These trends therefore indicate that heritage buildings must be given priority in any development of technology, documents, policies, tools, and certification schemes toward shaping a more sustainable and better world. The maintenance of heritage buildings is now largely accepted as a necessity for conservation * Corresponding author’s email: nurushsyahadah@um.edu,my, Tel. +60-11-26074004 Permalink/DOI: https://doi.org/10.14716/ijtech.v9i7.1864