UPDATE:
Thanks for the feedback Olivier. I figured it out, for macos anyway. If I right-click on the LiteIDE.app file in Finder and choose the "Show Package Contents" menu option, I can find the environment config files (darwin64-local.env, system.env, etc.) in the LideIDE.app/Contents/Resources/liteenv directory. At that location, the files are writable and I just added the environment variable at the end (e.g. FLUFFY=/etc/fluffy.conf) of the appropriate file.
When I run LiteIDE again, the environment files are still read-only within LiteIDE, but my changes to the environment files are visible.
Thanks again!
cheers,
Dave