diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 60c9c5e7..95ae13dc 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ setenv =
   DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=combo.settings
   COMBO_SETTINGS_FILE=tests/settings.py
   TOX_WORK_DIR={toxworkdir}
+  SETUPTOOLS_USE_DISTUTILS=stdlib
   coverage: COVERAGE=--cov-report xml --cov-report html --cov=combo/
   pg: DB_ENGINE=django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2
 passenv =