diff --git a/tools/include/nolibc/stdlib.h b/tools/include/nolibc/stdlib.h
index 902162f80337..bacfd35c5156 100644
--- a/tools/include/nolibc/stdlib.h
+++ b/tools/include/nolibc/stdlib.h
@@ -83,11 +83,10 @@ void free(void *ptr)
  * declared as a char **, and must be terminated by a NULL (it is recommended
  * to set this variable to the "envp" argument of main()). If the requested
  * environment variable exists its value is returned otherwise NULL is
- * returned. getenv() is forcefully inlined so that the reference to "environ"
- * will be dropped if unused, even at -O0.
+ * returned.
  */
 static __attribute__((unused))
-char *_getenv(const char *name, char **environ)
+char *getenv(const char *name)
 {
 	int idx, i;
 
@@ -102,13 +101,6 @@ char *_getenv(const char *name, char **environ)
 	return NULL;
 }
 
-static __inline__ __attribute__((unused,always_inline))
-char *getenv(const char *name)
-{
-	extern char **environ;
-	return _getenv(name, environ);
-}
-
 static __attribute__((unused))
 unsigned long getauxval(unsigned long type)
 {
diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/nolibc/nolibc-test.c b/tools/testing/selftests/nolibc/nolibc-test.c
index 6c94e491e2f8..8682e6f1e7a4 100644
--- a/tools/testing/selftests/nolibc/nolibc-test.c
+++ b/tools/testing/selftests/nolibc/nolibc-test.c
@@ -44,8 +44,8 @@
 #define SINT_MAX_OF_TYPE(type) (((type)1 << (sizeof(type) * 8 - 2)) - (type)1 + ((type)1 << (sizeof(type) * 8 - 2)))
 #define SINT_MIN_OF_TYPE(type) (-SINT_MAX_OF_TYPE(type) - 1)
 
-/* will be used by nolibc by getenv() */
-char **environ;
+/* will be used to test initialization of environ */
+static char **test_envp;
 
 /* will be used by some test cases as readable file, please don't write it */
 static const char *argv0;
@@ -787,6 +787,7 @@ int run_stdlib(int min, int max)
 		 * test numbers.
 		 */
 		switch (test + __LINE__ + 1) {
+		CASE_TEST(environ);            EXPECT_PTREQ(1, environ, test_envp); break;
 		CASE_TEST(getenv_TERM);        EXPECT_STRNZ(1, getenv("TERM")); break;
 		CASE_TEST(getenv_blah);        EXPECT_STRZR(1, getenv("blah")); break;
 		CASE_TEST(setcmp_blah_blah);   EXPECT_EQ(1, strcmp("blah", "blah"), 0); break;
@@ -1120,7 +1121,7 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv, char **envp)
 	char *test;
 
 	argv0 = argv[0];
-	environ = envp;
+	test_envp = envp;
 
 	/* when called as init, it's possible that no console was opened, for
 	 * example if no /dev file system was provided. We'll check that fd#1