A market benchmark and an asset-level score for institutional capital, measured at the source.
Capital underwrites the financial life of an asset — credit, rate, value, tenancy, insurance — against established benchmarks, and its physical substance, the material itself, against an estimate.
The DAC Index reads the material composition of the built environment at its source — production, procurement, logistics, customs, specification — and prices the exposure carried in it across four dimensions: cost, supply-pathway, origin-and-tariff, and substitution. It indexes the informational friction in the supply chain, not the material itself, and is expressed as a level against a verified baseline of 100.
A reading of 144 places the public drivers of material exposure 44 points above their 2018 baseline — tracing the 2022 supply shock (near 151) and a 2026 re-acceleration. It composites four public proxies, equally weighted: construction-materials cost, freight, import prices, and substitute-material prices. The Index itself reads exposure against a source-grounded reality; this is its public stand-in.
The Score reads the carried material commitment of a single asset against a verified baseline of 100, with a confidence rating on the pathway behind the estimate.
One method spans cost, supply-pathway, origin-and-tariff, and substitution, generalizing across material systems — structure, envelope, finishes, building systems. Each reading begins with observable sources: at-source pricing, production output, customs and logistics records, and the procurement trail. Independent reads of the same exposure are reconciled; where they agree, confidence is earned, and where one diverges, it is flagged for review.
At-source pricing originates at the producing facility — factory, mill, plant, or quarry — and is collected there, not aggregated.
Every reading bears a confidence rating reflecting the strength of its sources. The method is governed and versioned; automation carries the volume, and where the data thins, judgment is bounded by the method.
A simple average of the four reads would land at 112. The reconciled reading is 109 — the divergent source is flagged for review, not averaged into the answer; the reading settles nearest the reads taken at the source.
A single reading of material exposure is the reference for underwriting, reserves, draw conditions, bonding, and portfolio weighting. Two positions can look identical on every priced measure and differ entirely in the exposure each carries.
DAC is the conversion layer between source data and capital. It converts that data into a source-grounded, asset-specific, position-independent reading. Its authority is methodological: every reading is reproducible from a documented record.
DAC scores, verifies, benchmarks, and advises — the entirety of its activity. It takes no part in the supply of the material it reads — brokerage, distribution, fulfillment, installation, warranty, or financing — and holds no position in any outcome it reports. The boundary is structural and permanent.