Environmental Integrity, Market Entry and Value Creation in the Voluntary Carbon Market: A Comparative Policy and Institutional Analysis of the EU, Singapore and the Republic of Korea

Although the voluntary carbon market (VCM) converts mitigation and removal outcomes into tradable credits, concerns about additionality, measurement, reporting and verification (MRV), double counting and credit quality continue to constrain credibility. The same integrity requirements can increase the data, expertise and procedural burdens faced by supply-side actors. In this study, we examine how these requirements are related to market entry and value creation. Our core empirical analysis uses a structured qualitative comparison of legal, policy and market operation documents from the European Union, Singapore and the Republic of Korea, while a supplementary SciVal landscape check provides research context. Our comparison shows that integrity rules operate both as trust conditions and as participation requirements. Entry is supported by standardization, technical assistance, burden mitigation, collective participation and VCM-specific support, while participation generates strategic and economic value only when buyer access, price discovery, contracting, risk allocation and scaling mechanisms operate. On this basis, we propose an Integrity–Entry–Value (IEV) structure as a conditional rather than linear account of VCM formation, with bounded implications for markets facing comparable institutional challenges.