The Cuban Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment created a prize for institutions that work to protect the Earth's atmospheric ozone layer, and the first went to the Hotel Meliá Cayo Santa María, in the central province of Villa Clara. The hotel installed equipment in 2003 that does not use substances that deplete the layer of ozone gas in the stratosphere, which protects life on the planet from harmful ultraviolet rays from the Sun.

The CFC-Free Prize, named for chlorofluorocarbons (one of the main ozone-depleting substances) is part of Cuban efforts to comply with the terms of the Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987, ministry sources told Tierramérica.

Cuba has totally eliminated use of methyl bromide in its tobacco plantations and started technological reconversion of its refrigerator factories to substitute ozone-depleting chlorine, bromine and freon, among other substances.