On Mac OS X, environment variables set in .bash_profile or similar are not available to applications started via Spotlight or by double-clicking an app icon. The launchctl command can be used to set these environment variables instead, for instance from the .bash_profile script. This thread discusses an alternative solutions for Yosemite and El Capitan:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25385934/setting-environment-variables-via-launchd-conf-no-longer-works-in-os-x-yosemite | 