Branding has become so intertwined with consumption that today's consumers have often deeply personal relationships to brands and brand histories. Branding is an attempt to strategically "personify" products and to encapsulate a balance between different economic values: quality, utility, symbolic, and cultural worth. In this paper we argue that the relationship between the contemporary consumer and producer is mediated by and governed by a reflexive construction of brands. As such brands are best understood from an institutional perspective. The paper illustrates the institutional role of brands by using the example of the fashion industry. It is argued that in the fashion industry, a focus on consumer-producer brand-building and brand loyalty is central to the commodity and value chains built around products. We conclude by suggesting that economic geography has consistently undervalued brands as an area of study. By taking brands as a core product in industrial production rather than as an interesting aside for sociologists, historians, and cultural theorists, economic geography can better understand the institutions governing the economy. In particular, better understanding the institution of brands helps us better appreciate the dynamics systems within which commodities and commodity chains are formed.

Drainage and cultivation of peat soils stimulates soil organic matter (SOM) mineralization, which substantially increases CO 2 emissions from soils. Large uncertainties are associated with this CO 2 flux, and little data are available, especially in Norway. The objective of the present research was to estimate C losses from cultivated peatlands in West Norway by three independent methods: (1) long-term monitoring of subsidence rates, (2) changes in ash contents, and (3) soil CO 2 flux measurements. Subsidence of cultivated peat soils averaged about 2.5 cm year -1 . We estimated that peat loss and compaction were respectively responsible for 38% and 62% of the total subsidence during a 25-year period after drainage. Based on this estimate the corresponding C loss equals 0.80 kg C m -2 year -1 . The observed increase in mineral concentration of the topsoil of cultivated peat is proportional to their C loss, providing no mineral particles other than lime and fertilizers are added to the soil. Using this novel approach across 11 sites, we estimated a mean C loss of 0.86 kg C m -2 year -1 .Soil CO 2 flux measurements, corrected for autotrophic respiration, yielded a C loss estimate from cultivated peat soils of 0.60 kg C m -2 year -1 . The three methods yielded fairly similar estimates of C losses from Norwegian cultivated peatlands. Cultivated peatlands in Norway cover an estimated 63,000 ha. Total annual C losses from peat degradation were estimated to range between 1.8 and 2 million tons CO 2 year -1 , which equals about 3-4% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from Norway.

Geographers have studied the complex relationships between cultural production, consumption, and space for some time, but the marketplace for cultural products is being reconfigured by digital technologies and broader societal trends. For producers of fashion and music the contemporary marketplace is a double-edged sword featuring lower entry barriers and fierce competition from an unprecedented number of producers and ubiquitous substitutes. Global firms and local entrepreneurs struggle to stand out in the crowd and command monopoly rents for their unique goods and services. This paper examines how independent cultural producers use 'exclusivity' to generate attention and distinction. Drawing on qualitative research with independent musicians and fashion designers in Toronto, Stockholm, Berlin, and New York it presents three mechanisms through which exclusivity can be created. These include exploiting consumer demand for uniqueness, enrolling consumers into the production and promotion process, and manipulating physical and virtual space.

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Fashion companies are involved not only in producing material commodities (clothes), but also in the parallel production of ideas (fashion). The consistent use of outsourcing in the fashion industry means that material production is constantly on the move to low-cost locations. Still highcost countries have managed to retain a sizable presence in the world of fashion. For firms in such countries, the creation of value and profitability commonly rests on the ability to produce innovative design, brand value, efficient marketing channels, logistics and distribution. Sweden, for instance, plays host to a range of fashion firms: from the multinational giant Hennes & Mauritz to small innovative designers. This creates an interesting strategic problem for firms: why root knowledge intensive functions in Sweden when customers are mainly found in distant export markets? What localized knowledge processes, networks and other factors make these firms keep their home base in Sweden? The article suggests that both spatial proximity and the role of place are important to answering these questions. In conclusion, three main findings are discussed: that the Swedish fashion cluster is not based on high-tech but it is nevertheless knowledge intensive; that fashion has a multifaceted relationship with space and is produced under conditions simultaneously characterized by both localization and globalization; that place does play a distinct role in processes of fashion branding and more generally in the creation of immaterial value.