diff --git a/nova/monkey_patch.py b/nova/monkey_patch.py
index 6d0cacd6c7d4..be2a70ab4be7 100644
--- a/nova/monkey_patch.py
+++ b/nova/monkey_patch.py
@@ -22,6 +22,19 @@ import os
 
 
 def _monkey_patch():
+    # See https://bugs.launchpad.net/nova/+bug/1164822
+    # TODO(mdbooth): This feature was deprecated and removed in eventlet at
+    # some point but brought back in version 0.21.0, presumably because some
+    # users still required it to work round issues. However, there have been a
+    # number of greendns fixes in eventlet since then. Specifically, it looks
+    # as though the originally reported IPv6 issue may have been fixed in
+    # version 0.24.0. We should remove this when we can confirm that the
+    # original issue is fixed.
+    # NOTE(artom) eventlet processes environment variables at import-time. We
+    # therefore set this here, before importing eventlet, in order to correctly
+    # disable greendns.
+    os.environ['EVENTLET_NO_GREENDNS'] = 'yes'
+
     # NOTE(mdbooth): Anything imported here will not be monkey patched. It is
     # important to take care not to import anything here which requires monkey
     # patching.
@@ -39,16 +52,6 @@ def _monkey_patch():
     problems = (set(['urllib3', 'oslo_context.context']) &
                 set(sys.modules.keys()))
 
-    # See https://bugs.launchpad.net/nova/+bug/1164822
-    # TODO(mdbooth): This feature was deprecated and removed in eventlet at
-    # some point but brought back in version 0.21.0, presumably because some
-    # users still required it to work round issues. However, there have been a
-    # number of greendns fixes in eventlet since then. Specifically, it looks
-    # as though the originally reported IPv6 issue may have been fixed in
-    # version 0.24.0. We should remove this when we can confirm that the
-    # original issue is fixed.
-    os.environ['EVENTLET_NO_GREENDNS'] = 'yes'
-
     if debugger.enabled():
         # turn off thread patching to enable the remote debugger
         eventlet.monkey_patch(thread=False)