diff --git a/experimental/CHANGELOG.md b/experimental/CHANGELOG.md
index 33e8a3d0ce..4d2903e0f7 100644
--- a/experimental/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/experimental/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ All notable changes to experimental packages in this project will be documented
 ### :bug: (Bug Fix)
 
 * fix(sampler-jaeger-remote): fixes an issue where package could emit unhandled promise rejections @Just-Sieb
+* fix(otlp-grpc-exporter-base): default compression to `'none'` if env vars `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_COMPRESSION` and `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_COMPRESSION` are falsy @sjvans
 
 ### :books: (Refine Doc)
 
diff --git a/experimental/packages/otlp-grpc-exporter-base/src/util.ts b/experimental/packages/otlp-grpc-exporter-base/src/util.ts
index 4386b34169..88a7cc37ec 100644
--- a/experimental/packages/otlp-grpc-exporter-base/src/util.ts
+++ b/experimental/packages/otlp-grpc-exporter-base/src/util.ts
@@ -160,7 +160,8 @@ export function configureCompression(
 
   const envCompression =
     getEnv().OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_COMPRESSION ||
-    getEnv().OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_COMPRESSION;
+    getEnv().OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_COMPRESSION ||
+    'none';
 
   if (envCompression === 'gzip') {
     return CompressionAlgorithm.GZIP;