diff --git a/config/application.rb b/config/application.rb
index 0c294ac06..2188891f5 100644
--- a/config/application.rb
+++ b/config/application.rb
@@ -69,6 +69,9 @@ module Fablab
       Rails.application.config.paths['app/views'] << path
     end
 
+    # disable ANSI color escape codes in active_record if NO_COLOR is defined.
+    config.colorize_logging = ENV['NO_COLOR'] ? false : true
+
     FabManager.activate_plugins!
 
     config.after_initialize do
diff --git a/doc/environment.md b/doc/environment.md
index 831453685..63f1a21e0 100644
--- a/doc/environment.md
+++ b/doc/environment.md
@@ -269,6 +269,11 @@ See [Microsoft support](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/264372) for a lis
 If set to `true`, and the application in started into a staging environment, this will enable the Crowdin In-context translation layer for the front-end application.
 See [Crowdin documentation](https://support.crowdin.com/in-context-localization/) for more details about this.
 Accordingly, `RAILS_LOCALE` and `APP_LOCALE` must be configured to `zu`.
+<a name="NO_COLOR"></a>
+
+    NO_COLOR
+
+If set to any value, this will set `config.colorize_logging` to `false`, disabling ANSI color codes when logging information.
 <a name="open-projects-settings"></a>
 ## OpenLab settings
 <a name="OPENLAB_BASE_URI"></a>