diff --git a/cogl/winsys/cogl-winsys-egl-kms.c b/cogl/winsys/cogl-winsys-egl-kms.c
index 0e704223c..1c9cafb29 100644
--- a/cogl/winsys/cogl-winsys-egl-kms.c
+++ b/cogl/winsys/cogl-winsys-egl-kms.c
@@ -268,6 +268,12 @@ _cogl_winsys_renderer_connect (CoglRenderer *renderer,
   egl_renderer->platform = g_slice_new0 (CoglRendererKMS);
   kms_renderer = egl_renderer->platform;
 
+  /* The EGL API doesn't provide for a way to explicitly select a
+   * platform when the driver can support multiple. Mesa allows
+   * selection using an environment variable though so that's what
+   * we're doing here... */
+  g_setenv ("EGL_PLATFORM", "drm", 1);
+
   kms_renderer->fd = open (device_name, O_RDWR);
   if (kms_renderer->fd < 0)
     {