This document is one of a series of practitioner notes on social investment (SI) issued by IPIECA after preliminary research was conducted in late 2015–early 2016. The aim of the research was to assess the need for a revision of IPIECA’s Creating successful, sustainable social investment: Guidance document for the oil and gas industry, published in 2008. During this research, IPIECA benchmarked current SI practices of member companies against the framework and principles proposed in the 2008 guide, reviewed the guide in light of new developments in SI approaches, and identified new and available SI tools and guidance. While the research concluded that the framework and principles of the Social Investment Guidance remain sound, valid and useful to companies, it was also acknowledged that the document does not reflect the latest thinking on key SI issues and approaches. In addition, interviews carried out with both external stakeholders and the IPIECA membership during the research showed that follow-up exploration and information sharing on specific topics would be more useful to the industry at this stage than additional generic guidance. This led to the idea of producing a series of practitioner notes as a way to gather, organize and present practical information on industry current practices on particular issues, and analyse these in the light of the most recent developments in SI approaches.