TORONTO, ON, May 23, 2002 - James Morton, Senior Partner of Principia Partners, spoke at the Progress in Woodfibre-Plastic Composites Conference, sponsored by Materials and Manufacturing Ontario, held on May 23-24, 2002, in Toronto, Ontario. Natural and wood-fiber plastic composites (WPCs) are one of the fastest growing materials of this decade. The products compete with a broad array of traditional and performance materials, including lumber, plastics, concrete, and metal, and offer many in-service advantages relative to these materials. WPC producers are only beginning to exploit the benefits of specialty additives, which hold the potential to increase the performance of WPCs even further. These additives offer improved toughness, color retention, mildew resistance, and other performance enhancements that end users value. Although their use is limited in today's WPC formulations, close collaboration between the additives suppliers and WPC producers will result in better WPC formulations, and will drive greater use of additives.