The days when secretaries would make travel arrangements for their bosses are quickly coming to a close as the need for sophisticated corporate travel policies heightens.

Since April, businesses now have to deal with new corporate manslaughter legislation which shifts the emphasis away from the need to identify an individual who is culpable. Instead, the focus will be on how a company's activities are managed or organised by its senior management. This throws up some alarming scenarios in respect of corporate travel. For example, an executive may be booked on a red-eye flight to save money.

He arrives tired and stressed, hires a car to drive to his meeting and has a fatal accident.

His company may now be held culpable for not taking due regard to his health and well-being.

This could also apply in the case of an employee dying in a fire at a hotel which fails to meet health and safety regulations.

The Act says an organisation can be prosecuted if the harm resulting in death occurs in the UK, its territorial waters or on a British ship or aircraft anywhere in the world.

The need for corporate travel policies which safeguard employees is now paramount for all companies and organisations and I feel so strongly about this that Redfern has developed policies that all our clients can adopt for free and fully integrate with our online booking tools.

If you have a travel policy it shouldn't be left to gather dust on the proverbial shelf.

They actually need to be put into action to provide a managed solution that will prevent organisations putting their employees in jeopardy and falling foul of the law.

Punishments will now reflect the size of the offending organisation and the scale of the offence, so significantly higher fines are likely to be imposed in the future.

There are also other considerations. The world is becoming more dangerous and acts of terrorism more commonplace.

Travellers' security is now a key element of any managed solution for corporate travel – it is vital that employers know where their people are.

We have developed online systems which can provide clients with a full inventory of how many people they have in any particular location anywhere in the world.

When an incident happens, such as the bomb attacks in London in July 2005, having this information at your fingertips can save anxiety, time and stress for both the employer and their employees' families.

Pressure for greener travel arrangements is growing and being able to demonstrate a commitment to reducing the company's carbon footprint is rapidly becoming an important factor in winning new business. Green companies only want to deal with other green companies.

Until recently, providing carbon emissions for individual journeys by rail or air would have been an administrative nightmare.

Now we provide them as a matter of routine so that clients can compare the green performance of individual airlines or rail companies plus have access to full management reports so that clients can demonstrate their commitment to the environment.

Ian Wotton is managing director of Redfern Travel.