diff --git a/pkg/shellexec/shellexec.go b/pkg/shellexec/shellexec.go
index 26db22500e..93c866126c 100644
--- a/pkg/shellexec/shellexec.go
+++ b/pkg/shellexec/shellexec.go
@@ -534,7 +534,7 @@ func StartLocalShellProc(logCtx context.Context, termSize waveobj.TermSize, cmdS
 		if len(pamEnvs) > 0 {
 			// We only want to set the XDG variables from the PAM environment, all others should already be correct or may have been overridden by something else out of our control
 			for k := range pamEnvs {
-				if _, ok := varsToReplace[k]; ok && len(pamEnvs[k]) > 0 {
+				if _, ok := varsToReplace[k]; ok {
 					varsToReplace[k] = pamEnvs[k]
 				}
 			}
diff --git a/pkg/util/shellutil/shellutil.go b/pkg/util/shellutil/shellutil.go
index e19e8298fe..d9b625a848 100644
--- a/pkg/util/shellutil/shellutil.go
+++ b/pkg/util/shellutil/shellutil.go
@@ -244,11 +244,10 @@ func UpdateCmdEnv(cmd *exec.Cmd, envVars map[string]string) {
 		envKey := GetEnvStrKey(envStr)
 		newEnvVal, ok := envVars[envKey]
 		if ok {
-			if newEnvVal == "" {
-				continue
-			}
-			newEnv = append(newEnv, envKey+"="+newEnvVal)
 			found[envKey] = true
+			if newEnvVal != "" {
+				newEnv = append(newEnv, envKey+"="+newEnvVal)
+			}
 		} else {
 			newEnv = append(newEnv, envStr)
 		}