Installing Mac OS Monterey to a new Macbook

The link below should help you with steps on how to create a bootable USB drive for installing any version of macOS. Also, and this may benefit you more, you can install and run macOS from a thumb drive. You may want to consider that, instead of splitting up your normal hard drive.
Just a thought. Anyway, enjoy the article.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/101578

I think it is possible via this.

Here's the Mac App Store link for Monterey:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/macos-monterey/id1576738294?mt=12

I've never investigated this kind of requirement specifically, but don't think that anyone is forward-porting older versions of macOS to new hardware; OpenCore announces itself as a back-porting project, so it is unlikely to do what you want.

What you can do is install a virtualization hypervisor like UTM and then install your desired version of macOS as a guest. If you use VoiceOver you will notice some audio latency, but beyond that the system will be fully functional. Also getting input captured by a virtual machine in UTM can be tricky with VoiceOver enabled, so my recommendation is to focus the toolbar of the window displaying the virtual machine's graphical output, toggle the Capture Input switch to On, disable VoiceOver, press Tab, and keyboard input should be captured so you can press Command+F5 to enable the screen-reader on the guest system. To enable the screen-reader on the host machine, press Command while triple-pressing TouchID, which should get you back at the toolbar where you can also toggle Capture Input back off.

Upon some further research, it appears Apple intentionally designed the m4 series Macs to not be backwards compatible, at any level, with versions of macOS prior to Ventura 13.4. Including, but not limited to, virtual machines. This 9to5 Mac article gives a bit more info on this.

Having said that, allow me to correct my above statement with the following ...

It used to be, that you could download macOS outside of the Mac App Store, use it to create a bootable installation disk via a thumb drive, and then use that same thumb drive, or an alternate external drive to install and run the version of macOS you downloaded above.

Sadly, it appears those days are over. 🤷

Even if you could install Monterey you wouldn’t be able to run it, because there are no drivers for the newer hardware included. Apple has to backport them. They never have done this. Virtualization with tools like VirtualBuddy is the only way.

It's possible that Apple has already fixed whatever issue was preventing macOS versions before 13.4 from booting on virtual machines, because I've just installed macOS 12.6.1 on a UTM virtual machine running on my M4 Mac with macOS 15.3.1 and it worked just fine out the box.

The following is the Terminal output I got from logging in from the host to the guest right after installing the system, enabling secure shell access, and changing its network name:

jps@teal ~ % sw_vers
ProductName:        macOS
ProductVersion:     15.3.1
BuildVersion:       24D70
jps@teal ~ % sysctl -n machdep.cpu.brand_string
Apple M4
jps@teal ~ % ssh jdoe@dolly.local
The authenticity of host 'dolly.local (fe80::14ef:a22e:731f:605d%bridge100)' can't be established.
ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:xQlSvjmKKK6A4kMGiq5ka/QWhdGHeitCYfPS83nNl1E.
This key is not known by any other names.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'dolly.local' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
(jdoe@dolly.local) Password:
Last login: Sun Mar  9 10:40:01 2025
jdoe@dolly ~ % sw_vers
ProductName:    macOS
ProductVersion: 12.6.1
BuildVersion:   21G217
jdoe@dolly ~ % sysctl -n machdep.cpu.brand_string
Apple M4 (Virtual)
jdoe@dolly ~ % 
Connection to dolly.local closed.

By default UTM downloads the latest version of macOS when a path to an IPSW file is not specified during the initial virtual machine setup; since you want Monterey specifically, the following URL will direct you to the specific 12.6.1 IPSW file download from Apple's content delivery network that I used for this test:

https://updates.cdn-apple.com/2022FallFCS/fullrestores/012-66032/8D8D90C6-A876-4FFF-BBF4-D158939B3841/UniversalMac_12.6.1_21G217_Restore.ipsw

UTM is fully accessible with some quirks and also as free and open-source software as it gets, both in terms of price and in terms of liberty. The App Store version costs money, which goes to support the project, but if you can't afford it, a link to a notarized free installer hosted on GitHub is available on their website. I personally bought the App Store version a long time ago for the convenience of automatic updates, but this is not required. As for VMWare, I'm not sure, since I never actually tried to install macOS on it, and barely ever used it since going blind.