diff --git a/scripts/poky-env-internal b/scripts/poky-env-internal
index 62785f1acc..d25816c6a6 100755
--- a/scripts/poky-env-internal
+++ b/scripts/poky-env-internal
@@ -82,10 +82,6 @@ BBPATH="$NEWPATH"
 
 MSG=''
 
-BUILD_ARCH=`uname -m`
-BUILD_OS=`uname | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`
-BUILD_SYS="$BUILD_ARCH-$BUILD_OS"
-
 PATH="$BITBAKEDIR/bin/:$OEROOT/scripts:$PATH"
 
 # Remove any symlinks from paths
@@ -128,7 +124,7 @@ fi
 unset POKYLOCALCONF
 unset POKYLAYERCONF
 
-export BBPATH OEROOT BUILD_SYS BUILDDIR
+export BBPATH OEROOT BUILDDIR
 
 # Kill off the TERMINFO variable, as glibc will grab its contents in its 'make
 # install' if set
diff --git a/scripts/runqemu b/scripts/runqemu
index 82fc4e93b7..c45b2a1c86 100755
--- a/scripts/runqemu
+++ b/scripts/runqemu
@@ -23,9 +23,13 @@ if [ "x$BUILDDIR" = "x" ]; then
     type -P bitbake &>/dev/null || {
         echo "You either need bitbake in your PATH or to source poky-init-build-env before running this script" >&2; exit 1; }
 
-    # we have bitbake in PATH, get TMPDIR from the environment
+    # we have bitbake in PATH, get TMPDIR and BUILD_SYS from the environment
     TMPDIR=`bitbake -e | grep TMPDIR=\" | cut -d '=' -f2 | cut -d '"' -f2`
+    BUILD_SYS=`bitbake -e | grep BUILD_SYS=\" | cut -d '=' -f2 | cut -d '"' -f2`
 else
+    BUILD_ARCH=`uname -m`
+    BUILD_OS=`uname | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`
+    BUILD_SYS="$BUILD_ARCH-$BUILD_OS"
     TMPDIR=$BUILDDIR/tmp
 fi