diff --git a/apache-commons-codec.spec b/apache-commons-codec.spec
index c143a47..12bbc46 100644
--- a/apache-commons-codec.spec
+++ b/apache-commons-codec.spec
@@ -32,6 +32,9 @@ sed -i 's/\r//' RELEASE-NOTES*.txt LICENSE.txt NOTICE.txt
 %mvn_alias : commons-codec:commons-codec
 
 %build
+# Avoid running out of heap on s390x during test suite execution
+export MAVEN_OPTS="-Xmx1024m"
+
 %mvn_build -- -Dcommons.osgi.symbolicName=org.apache.commons.codec
 
 %install