diff --git a/distro.py b/distro.py
index 0afa527..60bb545 100755
--- a/distro.py
+++ b/distro.py
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@
 if not sys.platform.startswith('linux'):
     raise ImportError('Unsupported platform: {0}'.format(sys.platform))
 
-_UNIXCONFDIR = '/etc'
+_UNIXCONFDIR = os.environ.get('UNIXCONFDIR', '/etc')
 _OS_RELEASE_BASENAME = 'os-release'
 
 #: Translation table for normalizing the "ID" attribute defined in os-release