diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 0b06201..029d21f 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -114,6 +114,9 @@ user name, password and/or default database name(or multiple databases comma sep
 * -e DEFAULT_ENCODING="UTF8"
 * -e DEFAULT_COLLATION="en_US.UTF-8"
 * -e DEFAULT_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
+  
+Specifies whether extensions will also be installed in template1 database.
+* -e POSTGRES_TEMPLATE_EXTENSIONS=true
 
 Maximum size to let the WAL grow to between automatic WAL checkpoints.
 * -e WAL_SIZE=4GB
diff --git a/setup-database.sh b/setup-database.sh
index ade92a1..8543116 100644
--- a/setup-database.sh
+++ b/setup-database.sh
@@ -43,6 +43,13 @@ echo "postgres ready"
 # Setup user
 source /setup-user.sh
 
+# enable extensions in template1 if env variable set to true
+if [ "$POSTGRES_TEMPLATE_EXTENSIONS" = true ] ; then
+    for ext in $(echo ${POSTGRES_MULTIPLE_EXTENSIONS} | tr ',' ' '); do
+        echo "Enabling ${ext} in the database template1"
+        su - postgres -c "psql -c 'CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS ${ext} cascade;' template1"
+    done
+fi
 
 # Create a default db called 'gis' or $POSTGRES_DBNAME that you can use to get up and running quickly
 # It will be owned by the docker db user