McDonalds restaurants in Germany are seeking to rubber-stamp their green credentials through the subliminal, and literal, use of colour.

In what some are seeing as a desperate bid to express environmental-friendliness, the German outpost of the fast food chain, McDonald's, has announced that around 100 of its restaurants in Germany will change their well-known red backdrops to a deep green by the end of 2009.

McDonald Germany's VP, Holger Beeck, stated that the move is "out of respect for the environment."

Germany isn't the first to go green. France has been leading the European greening since 2006, when it launched the internal L'Eco Journal and its web site now features the logo against said deep green.

This move is at least part of a wider effort by McDonald's to adopt a greener philosophy, as chronicled in the McDonald's 2009 Global Best of Green report.